United Kingdom Travel Guide
Tags: Movie Set Travel / London Travel / Music Travel / → All Tags
Rock The Boat in London This Year, 'Pirate Radio'-Style
Today, "Pirate Radio", or "The Boat That Rocked" as it is known in the U.K., opens nationwide. The movie is based on the true story of a few rogue rock-and-roll deejays who broadcast from ships anchored just outside U.K. during a 1966 ban of rock music by the BBC. That same spirit is still alive in the U.K. today and here's how you can capture it.
Where to Stay:
Keeping with the anti-establishment theme of the film, The Pavilion Hotel in London certainly doesn't play by the rules. Every room in the hotel has an over-the-top theme and is decorated in loud colors and mismatched patterns. The bathrooms are small, the building is old, there is no elevator, this is not the Ritz, but what it lacks in amenities, it makes up for in character. The price is right too, rates start around £60 a night.
Tags: Celeb Travel / Twilgiht Travel / Gwyneth Paltrow / Robert Pattinson / Kristen Stewart / World Travel Market / London Travel / → All Tags
London Brings The Stars To Town This Week With Twilight And More
Gwyneth Paltrow is getting back to her normal routine in her adopted hometown of London. The actress and her kids, Apple and Moses, spent the summer in Los Angeles so she could work on the sequel to Iron Man, but now they're all back in the UK and okay. Gwyn was spotted sipping on a cup of coffee yesterday after skipping her kids off to school.
The family's routine won't last too long though. Gwyneth just signed on for The Danish Girl, replacing Charlize Theron as Greta, a 1920s painter whose husband poses for her as a female model. Nicole Kidman has also joined the cast too—she'll be playing the husband.
Tags: Taxis / London Travel / Virgin Atlantic / Airport News / LHR / Airport Transportation / → All Tags
Virgin Atlantic Believes In The Airport Taxi Share, Introduces 'Taxi2'
It's one of the oldest airport debates: whether or not to suck it up and take a taxi into town, or risk public transportation. For us, it depends on how large our party is and how much baggage we're dragging, but taxis are just so darn tempting.
Thankfully, Virgin Atlantic knows this and echoes our sentiments when they say: "we think it's crazy that people often wait in line and then get one taxi each. Most people go from the airport in a similar direction, so it's a great waste." Hallelujah, go tell it on the mountain, Virgin Atlantic! And since they're a giant company and all, they've decided to do something about this shared taxi conundrum by creating Taxi2, a social networking way to link up with other from your flight and share a ride with them into the city, cutting down on ride cost and maybe even making you a new friend.
Tags: United / Airlines / Airline News / Alcohol / Drunk Travel / Pilots / → All Tags
United Airlines Flight Canceled Due To Alleged Drunk Pilot
We know layovers are difficult, and they often drive us to drink. But we’re passengers and it’s perfectly fine for us to knock back a couple before heading to a middle seat in the back of the plane so long as we keep to ourselves. However, it’s definitely not a good idea to have a few adult beverages before the flight if you are the person responsible for flying the airplane. Fortunately for all aboard a United Airlines flight, the pilot was stopped before take off as he allegedly had a little too much to drink.
Over 100 passengers and crew were ready to depart London to head to Chicago aboard Flight 949 yesterday when their flight was abruptly canceled. The cause of the cancellation was due to a pilot who was not fit to fly. The pilot was arrested at London Heathrow Airport and was later released on bail pending the results of alcohol tests. A staff member of United Airlines was purportedly the one that rang the airport police to check things out—good work.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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."
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.
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."
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.
