Death of the guidebook? Sunday travel section digest

Is the guidebook dead? Marc Zakian (The Sunday Telegraph) says that with the arrival of podcasts and mobile-phone tours, the tourist standing on a street corner clutching a guidebook could soon be a "distant memory". And, with British Airways launching a new airline today, can BA Connect compete with the kings of the no-frills world? Stephen Bleach gets a sneak preview and sees how the airline stacks up against Ryanair and easyJet. To use a motoring metaphor, one of the above named is a Jaguar X-type, one is a Skoda and one is a Ford Focus. Which one is which? For the answer, click here.

Final question: when the bright young things of Istanbul want to let their hair down, where do they go? The answer is Göltürkbükü. Beverley Fearis (The Observer) joins them in the exclusive resort that is Turkey's answer to St Tropez.

Also in The Observer, Geoff Dyer heads for the River Ganges and immerses himself in Varanasi, India's most holy city, and, in stark contrast, in the first of a new series in The Mail on Sunday, Fraser the golden retriever leads John Nichol along the banks of the River Lea to London. Also in the UK, various luminaries share their local knowledge of the South Downs (The Sunday Times).

Now, is a trip on the Orient-Express, the QM2 or a private jet really worth it or is it more hype than holiday? Three Sunday Times' writers share their views.

Relishing a chance to rough it, Mary Riddell (The Observer) braves "eight days of high-speed adventure on a gruelling but enlightening 2,500-mile road trip from Tallinn to Ljubljana," Adrian Mourby (The Independent on Sunday) tries a spot of husky-sledding in the wilds of Quebec, and the newspaper rounds up the ten best close encounters with natural wonders. The list includes watching polar bears in the Arctic and spottting bats with a Transylvanian count.

There are lots of city-break ideas today. Mail on Sunday travel writers share their favourite things about Rome: the stones, the Caravaggio trail and the Il Gelato di San Crispino to name just a few. Anne Hanley (The Sunday Telegraph) looks at what is on offer in Venice apart from the glass and masks and The Sunday Times' instant weekend is Vilnius in Lithuania. The paper also checks out hotel rooms in Boston and The Independent on Sunday's "24 hours in" series lights on Orlando in Florida. This article accompanies one on Florida's Everglades National Park, home to lots and lots of alligators as Ben Ross discovers, and in The Sunday Telegraph, Kathy Wade says Miami's South Beach is an ideal medium-haul sunspot.

We round out today's coverage with some late snow and a renaissance city. Neil English (The Mail on Sunday) reports that heavy falls are still blanketing the Alps, and the end-of-season skiing is the best for 30 years, while Christopher Middleton (The Sunday Telegraph) weekends in Belfast. Middleton reports that the city has a long way to go before it becomes the "new Dublin", but it has its "charms". The politically minded might enjoy a taxi or foot tour of the Falls and Shankill Roads to view the famous murals. Each one tells a ghoulish story. Souvenirs with a twist include Ulster Volunteer Force tea towels (buy them on the Shankill Road) and Bobby Sands Hunger Striker badges (buy them on the Falls Road), but Belfast has much to recommend it, and as Middleton writes, now has a future where once it just had a past.

© Cheapflights Ltd Oonagh Shiel