Travel

Tealby. Two syllables hinting at 1,600 years of history. The name of this little Lincolnshire wolds spot is thought to mean “village of the Taifali people”. Which is odd, as the east Germanic Taifali tribe hailed from the Carpathian mountains, far from the east Midlands. It seems that a Roman …

Cold beers, crab sandwiches, glorious beaches and rugged headlands. Croyde Bay on the North Devon coast is well worth the trek to get there (a three-and-a-half-hour train journey from Paddington via Exeter to the nearest station at Barnstaple), if only to fall gratefully into the warm embrace of the village’s …

Kayaking and fishing off Dorset Fore Adventure runs outdoor activities on and around Studland Bay on the Jurassic coast, offering half-day kayak foraging around Old Harry Rocks (£65), is suitable for vegans and vegetarians, focusing on harvesting wild plants and seaweed. Fishing and foraging (£70) adds fishing for crustaceans and …

Every autumn, my father would load our family of five into his already ancient 1928 Morris and set off from our home in Portsmouth. Laden, as we were, with baskets, boots, crooked walking sticks, gloves and Elastoplasts, we were off blackberry picking. Apart from annual trips to collect cockles from …

Aw, shucks – oysters in Falmouth Every October, I find myself drawn to the Falmouth oyster festival, where fresh oysters, pulled straight from the boats, are shucked before your eyes. As you wander, the streets of Falmouth are buzzing with lively music, bursts of laughter, and the salty scent of …

Make the trip for … Wakefield is the UK’s unofficial city of sculpture. As the proud birthplace of the sculptors Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, it has two major art attractions in their honour. The whopping 500-acre Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP), and the Hepworth Wakefield. At the YSP, just outside …

James Bond slept until Sežana. In From Russia with Love, Ian Fleming writes that in Sežana “the hard-faced Yugoslav plain-clothes men came on board”. The Simplon-Orient-Express used by James Bond hasn’t run since 1962, and the border antics on the frontier between erstwhile Yugoslavia and Italy disappeared with the accession …

Leaving my wife and daughter under a parasol on Bordighera’s beach, my teenage son and I set off in search of the largest Ficus macrophylla in western Europe. The tree, commonly known as the strangler fig, was planted in 1886 by Clarence Bicknell, British botanist, collector, lover of Esperanto and …

You know that feeling when you accidentally buy the wrong house? No, me neither. Cal Hunter does, though, and it was to prove quite the most fortuitous error of the 31-year-old carpenter’s life. The blunder, in 2018 – attributed to a fast-talking auctioneer and a mix-up with lot numbers – …

There are ways to cut down on your carbon footprint on a ski trip in the mountains. We’d like to hear about your best no-fly, eco-friendly ski holidays in Europe with recommendations of sustainably run resorts, accommodation and eco initiatives. If you have a relevant photo, do send it in …