El Salvador: the little country that offers such a lot

Country & Town House | 24 Mar 2015

Almost nobody speaks English and we may be the country’s only tourists, as far as we can work out – which is a delight. Welcome to El Salvador. It is Central America’s least-visited country. Somewhere that has long struggled to gain tourists’ trust. A land perceived as dangerous and with gang killings, violence that has been going on since the 1990s. But if you don’t go into the shanty towns, you’re unlikely to be affected. Instead, we have a holiday in a little country with lots to offer… splendid wildlife and rich forests, colonial towns and beaches, vast mountain ranges and volcanoes. Above all, it’s never more than an hour to reach the city, sea or mountains by car from anywhere in El Salvador.

• Travel: Americas

Bribing elephants with pumpkin seeds and spotting monks with iPads in Thailand

Country & Town House | 24 Feb 2015

The monk in saffron robes clutches a mobile phone and iPad. It’s an incongruous sight. Normally these holy men are holding alms bowls for donations of sticky rice. ‘It’s wrong to use Buddha as decoration or tattoo,’ reads a notice nearby. Across the forecourt I hear the strains of musicians playing instruments with names like Krong, Krap and Pia. Maybe a dignitary has landed. Maybe I’ve got culture shock.

• Travel: Asia/ Oceania

United we stand

Sunday Times Style | 13 Feb 2015

My husband and I are sitting at a table, being instruted to look deeply into one another’s eyes. Opposite us, a softly spoken American is coaxing us to make statements about what we like in one another, with real feeling. I’m not in a loving mood, as we’ve bickered about the best route to the appointment. But I grit my teeth and tell my husband, Charles, that he’s sensitive and intuitive. That he makes me laugh. And that he’s kind. Then it’s his turn.

• Health, Beauty & Spa

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Gold star service

Country & Town House | 24 Oct 2014

Are those chores that need doing nagging away at you? Caroline Phillips picks out eight super services that should be on your speed dial

• Homes, Interiors & Property

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Salad days

Chewton Glen | 19 Oct 2014

“I was very sad to leave Cliveden,” says William Waldorf Astor, the fourth Viscount. In 1942 his grandfather gave the estate to the National Trust, but the family continued to live there until they found it too difficult, about which more later. Thus Lord Astor spent his first 16 years living at Cliveden, his family home, and a house with a political history – from the Dukes of Buckingham to the Astors.

• Interviews

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The ultimate style edit

Chewton Glen | 19 Oct 2014

You are staying at Chewton Glen or Cliveden House. Have you got a bulging case, but nothing to wear? Or did you not know how to translate city clothes to country looks without buying a whole new wardrobe? What you need is The Look Doctor, Annabel Hodin. The woman who will sort you out a core wardrobe for everything from the Oscars to a relaxed country weekend.

• Shopping & Fashion

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Sicily hot list: the super-8

Lusso | 10 Oct 2014

There’s something extra fab about Sicily. Everything is just that bit hotter (or cooler), more beautiful, and more intense. As Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman has written, ‘Oranges are more orange in Sicily.’ Whichever way you look at it, this once-prosperous island, the biggest in the Med and the meeting point between East and West, Africa and Europe, is magical. Go for its global class gastronomy that knocks the socks off almost anything you’ve eaten before. Tip up for its beautiful beaches. Go to marvel at its Byzantine, Baroque and Corinthian architecture and cliff-top villages. And to chill in stylish and super romantic hotels and villas.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

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Short cuts

London Review of Books | 9 Oct 2014

As we stepped off the ferry onto the Aegean island of Symi in late August, our thoughts were on sunbathing and sailing. But the first thing we saw was a group of what we soon discovered were Syrians carrying small backpacks holding those few possessions they hadn’t lost during the crossing from Turkey. A week later, the number of frightened, hungry and exhausted refugees had grown substantially; when we arrived there were about fifty, now there were around two hundred. An old man with gashes on his face sat bleeding in 30° heat for ten hours waiting for a doctor. He slumped forward, seemingly drunk from dehydration. He’d hit his face against the rocks when the Greek port police fired a shot in the air. Symi is the island closest to the Turkish mainland; the same thing is happening on many other outlying islands.

• Current Affairs

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Sizzling in Sicily

Lusso | 28 Aug 2014

If you want a laid-back week, search no further. Alternatively if you’re keen to go with a group of friends to party and chill somewhere rural, simple and charming, this is it. Or if you simply hanker after a beach-and-countryside holiday, book this now. Welcome to Il Vignale, a traditional 1860s villa near S. Stefano di Camastra on the north coast of Sicily. It sleeps 15 in seven bedrooms, big enough to get lost in happily for days – and is one of many fantastic villas offered by soloSicily.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

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Spa Guide 2014 – Uma Punakha, Bhutan

Country & Town House | 24 Aug 2014

This is the spa with the best and most healing view in the world. No treatment or activity – anywhere – could beat the ‘om’ effect of just gazing through its floor-to-ceiling windows at the snow-peaked Himalayas and glacial river.

• Health, Beauty & Spa

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Medicine man

Condé Nast Traveller | 19 Jul 2014

A rarity: an amazing man who looks like a gap-year student, used to be a zookeeper (he loves gorillas) and is now a healer. Paul Lennard has an uncanny ability to read people’s energy and highlight any issues. Then he addresses them through an eclectic mix of sports massage, Chi Nei Tsang (Chinese tummy massage) and craniosacral therapy.

• Health, Beauty & Spa

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The Experts… Advice

Condé Nast Traveller | 1 Jul 2014

I’d like to go on a fitness holiday, but I’m not really into gyms and I find boot camps terrifying. I’d also like some pampering spa treatments. Do you have any ideas?

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

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