Best seats in the house: You could see the Northern Lights while standing on a cold snowy street, or you could see them from a tiny cabin that’s been towed onto a secluded lake by a snowmobile. New from Best Served Scandinavia is a four-day tailor-made tour to Finnish Lapland, which includes two nights in a family-run hotel and one night bedding down in a cosy box on Lake Inari in the heart of the aurora zone. You don’t have to peer through the glass to catch a glimpse either – there’s a personal hot tub for prime viewing. From £670pp with flights. best-served.co.uk
Get Somerset: Do you stroll city streets looking at multi-floored period houses you’ll probably never own? Yeah, us too. Well if you can’t buy one, at least try staying in one – specifically No.15 Great Pulteney, Bath’s newest boutique hotel. The 31-bedroom retreat is set in five period townhouses, which means you can get your big bay window and Georgian facade fix without the hefty mortgage. Silver linings? From £140 a night. no15greatpulteney.co.uk
Chris Cooper
Cour blimey: What do you get when you mix 600km of ski-in, ski-out pistes with a huge dumping of the white stuff? Er, tons of fun carving the runs of Courchevel, France, of course. And now, thanks to the newly refurbished Hotel Courcheneige, you can go one better – with 86 boutique rooms, two fine restaurants and a top notch aprés scene, you can ski in carefree luxury at the heart of Les Trois Valées without breaking the bank. courcheneige.com
Name that dune: If you're looking to take the family on holiday, but the kids aren't tiny tots anymore, Sani Dunes is the place for you. The boutique hotel, opening next summer, is the latest sophisticated hangout in the Sani Resort (which is famed for its family-friendly facilities) near Thessaloniki, Greece. It’s aimed at those with kids aged 12 and above, so you won’t have to share your giant pool floats with any little ones. From £115 a night. sani-resort.com
Leap of faith: Keeping fit doesn’t have to mean hours of pavement pounding on the grey streets of London. Take things up a few levels with Wildfitness’s latest urban retreat, a three-day parkour course in Berlin. The retreat will see you mastering martial arts and mindfulness, while also leaping from building to building in full-on fitness sessions. Sightseeing doesn’t get better than this. From £865pp including accommodation, check the website for new dates. wildfitness.com
Florian Büttner
Go east: Love design? love culture? love, er, picking where to go on your next Eastern European foray based on insider suggestions and cool trending hotspots? You'll probably love the Calvert Journal's New East Travel Guide app, then. Combining local knowledge with Calvert's arty knowhow, if you're planning on heading to Moscow, St Petersburg or Kazan, you're covered. What's even better is that it's available to download for free until the 31 December 2016. calvertjournal.com
Camping in Cali: If the word ‘glamping’ has you rolling your eyes and running for the next damp, collapsing two-man tent, maybe, just maybe, the new Autocamp Russian River glamping site in sunny Sonoma County, California, will convert you. The 23 silver Airstreams and ten luxe tents are kitted out with fancy-pants bed linen and plonked right between the epic Cali coast and redwood forests, meaning you can take in the best of the surrounding area. And did we mention the vineyards? Hello, tasting rooms. From £135. autocamp.com
Wild at heart: Arranging a safari off your own back may sound like a logistical nightmare, and you know what? It probably is. Step forward new travel company Timbuktu, an Africa-focused website that allows you to build your own safari depending on your needs and budget. Once you make your selection (country, camps, fave animals), it’ll go through to Timbuktu’s team who will finalise the painful logistical arrangements. timbuktutravel.com
Wine and dine: Think Portugal and the Algarve, Lisbon or – if you’re anything like us – custard tarts might spring to mind. What you probably don’t think of is Minho – a wine region 50-odd miles north of Porto. There you’ll find the latest addition to the Sawday’s website – Quinta da Cancela, a 300-year-old wine property and now B&B, complete with granite pool filled with natural water, gorge airy bedrooms and hearty home cooking. sawdays.co.uk
Dog Tales: Why read us banging on about the delights of Yorkshire when you could watch a cute little Yorkie scooting about the place instead? Visit York’s latest ambassador is a russet-haired Yorkshire terrier, who has produced a series of dog’s-eye You Tube videos showing you the best of the city and its countryside. The three-part short film series, out now, is certain to be a blockbuster hit (in the escapism office, at least). #FanGirling #YorkAdventure #Yorkie. youtube.com/visityork
Dominic Martin
On your bikes: You know what’s fun? Mountain biking. You know what’s also fun? Whisky. You know what’s more fun than either of those things? A mountain biking and whisky adventure in Scotland. H+I Adventures has launched a range of two-wheel expeditions that take in the best of the country’s dramatic scenery and the cream of its whisky. Obviously you won’t be boozing and cycling at the same time, though. Best leave that to the professionals – like us, naturally. mountainbikeworldwide.com
Andrew McCandlish
The Good Sussex Guide: If you’re looking to escape the city and go on one massive pub crawl of Sussex, this is the book you’ll want to have in hand. The Best in Sussex 2016 Pub Guide does what it says on the tin: great pubs to sink decent pints in. In Sussex. In 2016. Expect more regions to follow. bestofengland.com/pub-guide
James Ratchford
One in-tents experience: No offence, but you look like you’re burning out. Maybe you just need to take a break, switch your phone off and hand it to someone else for safekeeping. That’s what you’ll do on The Flash Pack’s new four-day digital detox in Finland. During the adventure travel company’s tech-free break you’ll glamp under the northern lights and search for them via the region’s top modes of transport: that’s reindeer, snowmobile and huskies. From £854pp without flights. theflashpack.co.uk
We live in Brooklyn, baby: Manhattan’s days are numbered if the flurry of new hotels opening in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, are anything to go by. The latest is the swish, white-walled William Vale Hotel on Wythe Avenue, which has 183 rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, a killer rooftop bar (those NYC skyline views!) and a 60ft swimming pool with views over the East River. Rooms start from £260 a night. thewilliamvale.com
