Short hops for a long weekend Paris and Amsterdam have long been our default options for a city break, but there are lots of less predictable options worth exploring… STAVANGER Stavanger is Aberdeen’s twin city in Norway, but there’s a lot more to the city than just being Norway’s oil capital. The flight time is just over…

Marvellous Moray If you’re staycationing this year, then Moray may be just what you’re looking for. Temperature wise, it’s not exactly Mauritius, but it does have its own microclimate, which means that it’s often warmer and sunnier than the rest of the country. As it’s just sixty miles from Aberdeen, the kids don’t have time…

In deep Since retiring, Andrew Verreydt prefers to spend his holidays underwater, taking spectacular photos of his encounters with ocean life… Watching Jacques Cousteau’s documentaries in the 70s and seeing the undersea encounters with whales, sharks and other marine animals formed my lifelong love of the ocean and the creatures within it. In 1997, I…

Glamp it up This year’s sunshine summer holidays are looking pretty uncertain, particularly if you’re stuck in an isolation hotel when you get there and again when you return. Spending a fortnight confined to a room in a Travelodge at Heathrow isn’t anyone’s dream destination. So maybe now’s the time to support our own tourism…

Dream destination: Barbados Barbados lies in the blue seas of the Caribbean and is part of the Lesser Antilles island group, but there’s nothing lesser about the island as a winter break holiday destination. At over 400 km2, and a population roughly the same as the shire, it’s big enough to offer plenty of places…