A new breed of gappers - Sunday travel section digest

It’s always good news for travellers when a major Sunday newspaper is in crusading form, and The Sunday Times is throwing its considerable weight behind a campaign to end the tricks of the car-rental trade. Mark Hodson has four key demands: “no more excess charges; all insurance included in the quoted price; clear and simple documents; the end of nasty credit-card surprises”. Hodson’s article is packed full of readers’ sorry tales too. Caveat emptor.

And, in the news section, Chris Haslam says that package holidaymakers look set to lose the right to be flown home if the tour operator they booked with goes bust. “In a move to abandon its statutory guarantee of flights, Thomson has warned it will withdraw from the Civil Aviation Authority’s bonding scheme,” he writes.

It pays to be a canny consumer, and the hard-working families so beloved of politicians can, with Mark Hodson’s help (The Sunday Times), find a suitable holiday within four strict price bands - £500, £1,000, £2,000 and £3,000 – for a week during the school summer holidays. Hodson writes that he has used “all the tricks of the trade, tracking down free child places, flight deals and hotel discounts, and using the internet to cut out greedy middle men”.

Still in budget mode, Alison Waters, who hasn’t been Inter-Railing for more than 30 years, decided to celebrate her 50th birthday on the Greek islands by, yes, train.

Waters hosteled all the way, but if that’s just too budget, Fred Mawer (The Mail on Sunday) finds that you can get trendy accommodation in the UK at affordable rates if you know where to look. He does and presents his pick of the best: ABode, City Inn, Apex Hotels, Hotel du Vin and Malmaison.

Also, more than 30 years ago, Hilary Bradt (The Independent) wrote what has become the bible for independent travellers. Following a year-long journey in 1974 through South America, Bradt wrote and self-published Backpacking Along Ancient Ways in Peru and Bolivia. Today, Bradt Travel Guides has nearly 100 titles in print.

In a related feature, Sarah Barrell has discovered the out-of-the-way gems of Europe. It’s a perfect article for people who don’t want to travel too far to get away from the crowds. Get your atlases out to discover where Molise, Iles d'Hyères, La Coruña, Fano and Serifos are.

The Observer has rounded up 50 fabulous things to do this spring. Play at being a farmer, just £100 a day, or take the family to Devon to see some sheep racing and the Ewetopia Adventure Zone indoor playground in Bideford. The EWEro is legal tender there you know.

With the release of the Merchant-Ivory film, The White Countess, Shanghai is in the news. Phil Hogan (The Observer) visits with high hopes of “opium dens, rickshaws, brothels and assassins”, but finds that history and communism have got in the way of all that... Still, he discovers a “futuristic metropolis of flashing neon, rampant development and unfeasibly flexible acrobats”.

For a ski resort with a difference Steven Shukor tries out Riksgränsen, the world's most northerly resort. Riksgränsen lies 300km inside the Arctic Circle, near the Norway border. It is so far north that the “darkness engulfing this region all winter begins to lift only in mid-February”. By late April there is 24-hour sunlight, the ski lifts stay open until after midnight. The season continues until the end of June “when many are on the slopes in shorts and T-shirts”.

Now for a new breed of gappers: after school-leavers, career-break travellers and grey adventurers comes family gappers. Gemma Bowes writes that a specialist tour operator for the over-thirties, has launched some family-friendly community development and environmental projects in Kenya, the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador. “Families with children of any age can help out for between one and four weeks”, Bowes writes.

Almost as remote, but not as altruistic, this week’s celebrity (ish) feature in The Mail on Sunday follows Chris Jagger’s (brother of Mick) canoe journey down the Nahanni River in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

The Sunday Telegraph says that Britons are increasingly replacing their two weeks in the sun with several shorter trips (one-to-three night breaks). The pressure of work, cheap flights (thank you easyJet and Ryanair) and the internet are reasons behind our short-break holiday habits apparently. The newspaper delves into what’s on offer for short-breakers in Athens, Barcelona, Ljubljana and Rutland.

Paris is an established short-break favourite. Some tour operators say it is a hot destination for 2006. You might think that it would be a good idea to avoid the city with the urban unrest and all, but Simon Calder finds a novel, and rugged, way around the streets – a quad bike. It is, Calder writes, “a vehicle that affords an omniscient perspective of the city planner's handiwork, while simultaneously claiming exemption from the normal rules of traffic”.

Calder has just a couple of near-misses, pays £106 to drive the quad bike for two hours, and concludes that driving in Paris is like an “exercise in four-dimensional, high-speed chess, played according to a set of rules that are known only to the local drivers”, but despite being 15 minutes late back with the bike, his credit card was not dinged. Clearly he is not in need of The Sunday Times’ crusade…

© Cheapflights Ltd Oonagh Shiel

Comments

[david soskin]

I support 100% Mark Hodson's campaign on transparent pricing for car hire. A few years ago, I arrived at the new Denver Airport and noticed, on hiring a car, a substantial levy had been added. I queried it and was told that it was a contribution to the building of the new airport. I replied that I paid quite enough tax in the UK - but sadly to no avail.

[Jill Jones]

I wish The Sunday Times every success with its campaign. Over the years, my husband and I have been ripped off by car rental companies on holidays to Spain, Portugal and Ireland. We don't have a car at home for environmental reasons, but trying to discover why extra charges are appearing on my credit card bills has cost me so much time and energy - apart from the money that is - that I am starting to think we should get a car and take ferries. These companies just see customers as meal tickets, and think they're fair game once they leave the country. Stop ripping us off!