Jaunted

Tags: Celeb Travel / Victoria Beckham / LHR / In-Flight Fashion / Fashion / → All Tags

Beckham Goes Caped Crusader For Transatlantic Flight

Last week, we had a perfect demonstration of how not to look and how not to handle your passport when Twilight star Kristen Stewart traveled through LAX looking a mess and barely holding onto her passport. But trust good old former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham to trample through London-Heathrow in a black cape-y thing and giant shades and put in-flight fashion back on track.

No, we're not necessarily endorsing going pantsless with only a cape to keep you warm, but if you're flying first class from London back to the States as super world traveler Beckham is, you're welcome to look a little over-the-top. And that is why Victoria also gets a pass for toting a blue bag with a black outfit—at least she's also got her passport under wraps.

more ›

Tags: London Travel / Gay Travel / Tourism Boards / → All Tags

London Gets A Gay Traveler Info Center With Boring Website

Nepal as a gay travel destination was something of a surprise. But the fact that London has just opened up an LGBT Tourist Information Office isn't too out of the blue – but it's a good thing just the same.

The office director says the reason for the center is to show that "London's exciting LGBT life is the best in the world". There might be a few cities which would beg to differ, but you'd have to agree that a huge city like London definitely has plenty for everyone.

But – here's a pretty big "but" – the office's website doesn't show much about the exciting LGBT life in London yet. Sure, it's early days, but the site's just a simple Wordpress blog with hardly anything on it, and really not ready to be launched, in our humble opinion.

more ›

Tags: Travel Contests / Britain Travel / Travel Websites / → All Tags

Brits Can Win Their Dream Break With 20 Words Or Less

We like winning stuff, so we pricked up our ears when we heard that UK-based travel booking site superbreak is running the Build Your Dream Break contest. You could win the chance to create your own short vacation—up to the value of £1,000 ($1,600), anyway.

The contest closes on October 31 and involves describing what your dream break would be like in 20 words or less. It might sound simple, but we think that it'd take us a few more sentences than that to explain our dreams. Although if you check the terms and conditions it sounds like the winner will be drawn at random, so perhaps the quality of your 20 words isn't all that important.

more ›

Tags: Travel TV Shows / Celeb Travel / Television Travel / → All Tags

12 British TV Stars Go Around The World In 80 Days For BBC

How many celebrities does it take to go around the world in 80 days? Twelve modern ones, or one Python—that's the equation the BBC has come up with for a new reality show that splits Jules Verne's classic journey up among pairs of stars for a good cause. It's "The Amazing Race" meets "The Superstars," if VH-1 were casting it.

Back in 1989, Michael Palin decided to reenact the journey taken by Phileas Fogg in Around The World in 80 Days for a BBC special, arriving back in London via Venice, Jeddah, Pune and Long Beach after 79 days and 7 hours. (The movie is currently streaming on Netflix, should you need a little travel inspiration.)

more ›

Tags: Airport Shop / Shopping Travel / Airport News / Glasgow / Glasgow Travel / Airport Layover Attractions / → All Tags

Glasgow Updates Airport Shopping With Snazzy 'Planeshop' Concept

Everybody loves a good pop-up shop, but the possibility of limited-edition goods gets even more tempting when we're talking about travel products. Very soon, as the shop is due to open yet this year, "Planeshop" will debut inside of Glasgow Airport as a rotating retail concept. The shop will be permanent, but the brands for sale inside of it will alternate every so often to constantly keep the airport concessions fresh and interesting.

We love love love stuff like this because it helps to make an airport a destination in itself, giving you something to look forward and possibly counteracting the frustration experienced during the rigamarole of air travel. In addition to the limited edition items, Planeshop will provide travelers with Planemix, "a downloadable selection of global digital music tracks that rotates each month," and Foodflight, "a selection of tapas and sangria for takeout or in-store dining."

more ›

Tags: Crime / London Travel / Travel Crime / Trains / Train Travel / → All Tags

UK Forger Gets Busted For Fake Train Tickets

Back in middle school, one of our friends got a scanner for his computer—it was cool at the time, we promise. The logical thing was to immediately make fake hall passes, so we totally understand what Jonathan Moore was thinking when he did something similar. Instead of wandering the hallways, this IT expert made more than £12,000 in fake train tickets. His copies were pretty good since they allowed him to travel totally free for about two years.

He would have continued on his merry way except a ticket taker with a good eye finally ruined his free ride. One day in Brighton an inspector noticed a color variation in his ticket, and then another 11 fake tickets were discovered in the plastic wallet where he kept all his contraband. So instead of getting busted for just one ride, he pretty much got busted for every ride he ever took. It didn’t help that the local police found over 70 designs for forged tickets on his computer.

more ›

Tags: Beaches / Beach Towns / Rick Steves / Brighton Rock / Graham Greene / → All Tags

Brighton Rocks: Rick Steves Finds Solace in London's Beachy Getaway

One of my favorite travel-related novels is Graham Greene's 1939 murder mystery Brighton Rock, because Greene summarizes better than any other writer why people go through the trouble of traveling. In its first pages, he describes the difficulties lower-class Londoners went through for a day at the beach, standing in packed carriages from Victoria and returning home in the bleary hours of morning.

In one of the most beautiful sentences I've read, he explains why they do it:

"With immense labour and immense patience they extricated from the long day the grain of pleasure: this sun, this music, the rattle of the miniature cars, the ghost train diving between the grinning skeletons under the Aquarium promenade, the sticks of Brighton rock, the paper sailors' caps."

more ›

Tags: Harry Potter / Movie Set Travel / London Travel / Movie Travel / → All Tags

Check Out Harry Potter's Most Enchanted Locations In The UK

Harry Potter fans rejoiced earlier this month when they learned that The Wizardly World of Harry Potter theme park will open this spring at Universal Orlando. But for some, the wait is just too long. If you're looking to get your Harry Potter on now, here are a few real-life locations that have been featured in the films, and are now popular tourist destinations:

King's Cross Station
The King's Cross railway station is located on the edge of Central London, at the junction of the A501 Euston Road and York Way. Platform 4 at King's Cross station is Platform 93/4 in the first movie where Harry first got on the Hogwarts Express. A sign for Platform 93/4 still hangs in the station and there is even a luggage trolley that magically disappears into the wall.

That one was easy; more after the jump.

more ›

Tags: Wine Travel / Interactive Menus / Social Media / London Restaurants / → All Tags

Wine Lists Turn To Social Media at L'Anima Restaurant In London

The L'Anima Italian restaurant in London has gone one step further than just letting you choose your wine from a touch screen; last month they ran an online contest so that blog readers (some of whom, we presume, were also restaurant goers) could choose three new wines for L'Anima to add to their impressive wine list.

And it wasn't just a case of voting for your favorite wine off a list. L'Anima went to the trouble of getting three pairs of wine experts to explain their favorites off the shortlist of nine, made these explanations into YouTube vids, and got voters to decide which video was the best.

more ›

Tags: Literary Travel / Events / Jane Austen / England Travel / → All Tags

Take The Seaside The Jane Austen Way In Bath, England

It is a truth universally acknowledged that British writer Jane Austen is a huge industry: Look at the runaway success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and its sequel, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. But only real Austen fans will make the pilgrimage to Bath—a popular vacation destination in Jane's day that she actually didn't like very much—for the Jane Austen Festival, which runs till next Sunday the 27th.

Austen lived in Bath for six years and set significant parts of two of her novels in the seaside resort town, but privately admitted to not liking it all that much. Back then, visitors would take salubrious dips in the geothermal hot springs by day and go to the theatre by night; you can still do both of these, although you may be more likely to see Bath Rugby and check into an organic resort like the Thermae Bath Spa.

more ›

Tags: Fall-Foliage-Map / Fall Foliage Travel / Fall Travel / Outdoor Travel / London Travel / England Travel / → All Tags

Fall Foliage Travel: Skip Central Park For London's Hampstead Heath

Reap the benefits of the slow airline of fall by hopping a cheaper ticket across the pond to London. We're not kidding; a friend just booked a weekend trip to London on Virgin Atlantic after seeing that it was just as expensive as some flights between Chicago and NYC.

If you are similarly spontaneous, or just thirsty for a good pub with some fall foliage outside, we recommend heading to London's Hampstead Heath area, like their version of NYC's Central Park. Here, you'll not only get a view of trees turning during the fall colors peak of late October through early November, but also—atop London's highest point, Parliament Hill—you'll have a view over the whole city.

more ›

Tags: Airport Lounges / Lounges / Etihad Airways / LHR / → All Tags

Etihad Airways Rolls Out Luxe Airport Lounges With Free Limo Service

After a long snooze in one of Eithad Airways' crazy fancy suites, you are going to need to eventually stumble off the plane, like it or not. That’s why the airline is starting to expand its offerings when it comes to matching fancy schmancy lounges. The airline opened their first lounge outside of the United Arab Emirates over the summer in Frankfurt, and now they have their eyes on the comfort prize in London.

Along with moving their flights from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4 at London-Heathrow, a new lounge will open for the classiest of fliers on September 30. Give them a call now and book your private treatment room where you’ll be pampered by treatments from the Six Senses Spa. The foot and leg massages will be quite a relief after an overnight long-haul flight. ANd if you’re hungry after a rubdown, just swing by their five-star dining facilities where you can watch your dinner being cooked through an open kitchen.

more ›