The rain soaked, mud laden fields of Glastonbury are far removed from the location of this music festival, Worthy Farm this most certainly isn’t.
Basecamp Explorer (http://www.basecampexplorer.com) Norway’s eco adventure pioneers, are celebrating Polar Jazz, a jazz festival, with an exhilarating four day Arctic Expedition that combines husky safaris in the snowy wilderness and a night marooned in their “Ship in the Ice”.
Polar Jazz is the northernmost festival in the world. Attracting Scandinavia’s greatest Jazz musicians to Norway’s Arctic outpost, Spitsbergen. Here, Polar bears outnumber humans!
The Polar Jazz festival runs from 2nd to 6th February 2011. Northern Lights Holidays Norway just got really exciting!
Basecamp Explorer’s package gives full access to the festival’s impressive line-up and lots of other activities guaranteed to satisfy any thrill seeker. As a real plus, This is the best time to see Northern lights in Norway.
Your journey starts in Longyearbyen, Svalbard’s only town (population 2,000), with a night at Basecamp Explorer’s traditionally built Trappers Lodge. The
only alteration being the glass ceiling, providing the perfect view of the bright northern lights glowing above.
The next morning, buckle up! You’re going Husky Trekking. Travelling through some of the most spectacular scenery Spitsbergen has to offer, your destination is Noordelicht, a restored schooner frozen into the middle of an ice-covered fjord.
An adventure in itself, you can cosy down for two nights in the warmth of the ship in the ice.
A return ride to Longyearbyen with your huskies, passing abandoned trappers huts on the way, you are likely to spot arctic fox, reindeer or polar bear.
After a hot shower and Thai massage (Longyearbyen is home to a small community of Thais), head to Huest – Svalbard’s top restaurant – where you can dine on seal, reindeer and arctic char.
Complete your Arctic adventure in style at one of the local bars, smooth jazz in the background and dazzling Aura Borealis overhead.
(Price - from approx £1,850pp for 4 nights including two at Trappers Lodge and two at the ‘Ship in The Ice’. 4 breakfasts, 3 lunches, 2 dinners. 3 day husky safari with your own team of dogs and Cold weather clothing for the duration of your stay. Fully qualified guides and instructors. Excludes flights. http://www.basecampexplorer.com // +47 79 02 46 00.)
In 1989, Japanese ice artists visited Jukkasjärvi, a small villiage in Sweden. They created an exhibition of ice art. The following year, a french artist also exhibited his work in an igloo. The exhibition was popular. So much so, that there were no rooms available in the villiage.
Those without a room slept in the igloo with sleeping bags and reindeer skins.
The IceHotel was born!
I am a big fan of the IceHotel. From the small Igloo of 1990, the hotel is now regarded as an annual work of art. Each year, the owners try to improve.
Between 50,000 and 60,000 people stay each year. There are other ice Hotels, but this was the first and, in my eyes, still the best.
20 years on, the Ice Hotel Sweden is a wonder in itself.
This winter, however, there is possibly the best chance to see one of natures most glorious events – The Northern lights.
IceHotel will offer Northern Lights holidays and guided northern light tours by bus to its guests, every night. The world-famous hotel will find the best places in the area by studying the forecast and prognoses from IRF, the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, SMHI, Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute and local observers.
These Northern Lights trips are slap bang in the middle of where it’s all at.
IceHotel is located in the middle of the ring-shaped area known as auroral oval, the area around the Earth’s magnetic north pole where northern lights mainly appear.
The so-called sunspot cycle, the approximately eleven year long cycle when the number of sunspots varies widely, is during the next two to four years predicted to reach its maximum, which increases the chances of northern lights in the auroral oval in the coming years.
Now is the very best time to see the Northern lights. The IceHotel is the very best place to see the Northern lights.
As well as Natures greatest light show, the architectural magic and the remoteness of the IceHotel, it’s good to know that the food is not bad either!
The cuisine of IceHotel Restaurant has been featured in gourmet magazines around the world and has been awarded the prestigious Werner Vögeli Statuette.
This has to be one of Sweden’s best travel experiences.
If you’re travelling to Jackson, Wyoming for the ski season or you’re en route to Yellowstone National Park you could be forgiven if you didn’t venture over the Teton Pass into Idaho. But you would be making a big mistake; missing out one of Small Luxury Hotels of the World’s jewels of the American North West, Teton Springs Lodge & Spa.
Location
Just over the Teton Pass from Jackson, Teton Springs Lodge & Spa sits at the Southern end of the plains that lie at the foot of the Teton Mountains. Surrounded on three sides by the vast, mountainous Targee National Forest this wild expanse provides every imaginable adventure from skiing to fishing, trail riding to white water rafting. This is country for exploring.
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When planning a holiday, You want to make sure you get the best. You probably do not want to “Thomas Cook it”, You deserve the pinnacle of luxury, a unique and perfectly agreeable user experience.
You can now enjoy the most up to date insider’s tips at Olympia, London from 4 – 7 November. The Conde Nast Luxury Travel Fair 2010 has lined up the very best in Luxury getaways, 70 of the finest holiday experiences from around the world are featured and 90 travel companies are present to give you all the info and inspiration you will need.
This consumer led event will be able to glean information from first-class travel specialists, five-star hotels and luxury tour operators for 5 star luxury hotels and pure luxury holidays.
Exhibitors already confirmed will include tourist boards such as Abu Dhabi Tourism and the Spanish Tourist Board; tour operators Abercrombie & Kent Ltd, Bailey Robinson, Elegant Resorts and Virgin Holidays & Hip Hotels and luxury hotel specialists Constance Hotels and Tivoli Hotels & Resorts. You will find your luxury hotel resort at this exhibition.
This fair will also have plenty of interactive events, such as live interviews with inspirational speakers including BBC presenter Dan Cruickshank and Olympic Skier and Ski Sunday presenter Graham Bell, to cultural performances including traditional Middle Eastern belly dancing and steel drums from the Caribbean.
‘Taste the World’ with Harvey Nichols Foodmarket sounds completely appealing too!
If the World is not enough for you, You can have a chat about a stellar experience with Virgin Galactic…. The Conde Nast Luxury Travel Fair 2010, It’s all here!
Advance tickets for The Luxury Travel Fair are £12.50 per adult and £6.50 per child. Tickets bought on the day are £15 each. Children aged 12 and under go free.
Tickets can be booked online at http://www.luxurytravelfair.com or on the ticket hotline number 0871 230 1091.
Sri Lanka tours have become one of the World’s most popular holiday choices.
This holiday hotspot seemingly has it all – Charming people with diverse religious and cultural backgrounds. The island and the landscape of Sri Lanka is as diverse as its people and I think this is what has been the major pull.
Spanning 430 km North to South and with a width of 225 km, Sri Lanka Holidays offer so much.
From the idyllic coastline that stretches a lengthy 1340 km to Sri Lanka’s tea country, where the landscape is dramatically different with lush surroundings and temperate forests, there is much to see and do.
Tea Country
Safari seems the way forward. Asian specialists, cazenove+loyd like to do things a little differently. Why safari in a battered, bumpy four x four when you can take to the skies and really get to see Sri Lanka…all of it.
From Colombo, the private Bell Jet Ranger helicopter heads for Kandy, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one corner of Sri Lanka’s cultural triangle.
The other two corners, the ancient cities of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa in the north can be circled in a few hours by helicopter, giving passengers a clear aerial view of the ancient ruins. The helicopter lands next to the UNESCO World Heritage site, Sigiriya.
Sigiriya
From the north, it is just a one hour flight to Sri Lanka’s Tea country. Clients stay in a converted tea plantation bungalow and can visit local tea factories and explore the countryside by foot, bike or raft.
Galle, the most important town in the south of Sri Lanka, is the final stop on the safari. The flight from the Highlands to Galle takes in the sights of the Kothmale reservoir, local waterfalls and the sacred Adam’s Peak which contains the footprint of Buddha.
Fly over Adam’s Peak at sunrise and witness the distinctive triangular shadow the mountain casts on the surrounding plain.
View From Adams Peak
An unbelievable island offering mile after mile of Seductive beaches, cultural heritage sites, differing landscapes of Mountains to lush green lagoons and leafy forests and waterfalls and rivers bursting with suitably diverse organisms.
It has to be seen by air, surely the only way to take in all this Island has to offer.
A five night flying safari with cazenove+loyd (http://www.cazloyd.com 020 7384 2332) costs from 3,455 per person based on four people travelling, as part of a tailormade itinerary. The price includes a night at Kandy House, two nights at Lavender House in the Highlands and two nights at Galle Fort Hotel on a bed and breakfast basis with private helicopter flights throughout. The itinerary does not include international flights.
