Travellers Club Blog

Does the time you had off work over the festive season seem like a distant memory? Are you planning to book in a long weekend and head off on a mini break somewhere in the UK?

Then here at the Travellers Club we might be able to help. We’ve just finished putting together our United Kingdom travel guide and mini guides.

Check them out for yourself, you’ll find information on the Cotswolds, Devon & Cornwall, walking holidays, golf holidays and much, much more.

We hope to keep adding to these guides with information that we think our members will find useful and it would be great if you could help too.

So if you have some top tips or hidden gems of the UK that you’d like to share with us and your fellow members then leave a comment or get in touch at travellers@web-clubs.co.uk 

We look forward to hearing from you!

According to BBC News severe weather warnings for snow are in place after most of England and parts of Wales had a second significant snow fall last night in less than a week.

Some schools have closed today; 30 in Staffordshire & Cheshire, 1 in Wiltshire, 4 in Lincolnshire and 2 in Cambridgeshire.

The Met Office is warning people to “be prepared” for severe cold weather, icy conditions and heavy snow until Monday morning. Be particularly careful on the roads tonight and tomorrow as temperatures will drop to as low as -8C tonight leading to a hard frost and icy driving conditions.

Here at the Travellers Club we were wondering if you’ve had any travel disruptions caused by the bad weather. Or perhaps you’ve got some lovely snowy pictures you’d like to share with us? Leave a comment and get in touch, we look forward to hearing from you.

February the 14th is fast approaching, will you be celebrating? Do you see it as another excuse for people to make you spend money or will you use it as the perfect reason to spend some quality time with your loved one travelling somewhere new.

Here at the Travellers Club we’ve put together a few ideas that might inspire you to do something special this Valentine’s day; we’ve compiled a list of top Valentine’s Day mini break destinations.

There are so many destinations for you to choose from; just a train journey away is the fantastic city of Edinburgh, or perhaps this could be your chance to visit Rome, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Or if you’ve got a bit more money put by you might opt for romantic walks in Central Park and take a break in New York.

So check out the full article and let us know what you decide to do….if anything at all!

There are many factors that affect the fuel consumption of an aircraft but the most significant is the weight of the aircraft. It’s quite simple really, the more a plane weighs the more fuel it must burn.

So if passengers continue to increase in size as the obesity crisis predicts, planes will continue to weigh more and the airline’s costs will go up, especially as airline fuel costs have increased since 2000. Eventually the airlines will need to cover these costs and therefore the passenger’s costs will go up. Here at the Travellers Club we want to know if you think this is fair. Should those passengers at a healthy weight have to pay the extra?

A weight surcharge may be a good idea until it has to be put into action; how would it be worked out, where would the weigh-in take place and will it just result in making the check-in process even longer?

Leave a comment and get the discussion started, we look forward to hearing from you.

Cruise ship The Costa Concordia ran aground near the island of Giglio in calm conditions on Friday. Of the 4,000 people on board, tragically six have died and 16 are still missing, 10 are believed to be passengers and six are crew members.

The Captain of the ship, who has worked for the company for 11 years, has been accused of leaving the ship before evacuation and has now been arrested on suspicion of multiple homicide along with the first officer.

Our thoughts go out to the friends and family of the passengers still unaccounted for as the search is temporarily suspended after the ship slipped 9cm from its resting place. The Daily Mail has reported that “fears are growing that the vessel could soon sink 100 metres to the bottom of the ocean and stormy weather has hampered rescue efforts”.

The island of Giglio’s Major has said, “the hopes of finding any more survivors are fading. There are also worries oil could start to spill from the ship – sparking an environmental disaster”.

We hope rescue efforts can begin again soon at this unbelievable tragedy of a modern ship.

Visit the Travellers Club YouTube Channel to see BBC implausible coverage of this terrible disaster.
 

The proposed new high speed rail link between London and Birmingham just approved by the government has certainly sparked a heated debate for and against.

On the one hand the government maintain that the billions of pounds it will cost will generate extra jobs in the area and show a real return in future savings. Those against apart from the 'ecological' arguments of ripping up parts of the countryside, feel it is a waste of money, not needed and the prospects for it being a positive contribution are exaggerated.

However, the one thing that mystifies me is why the route is so different from the route already laid down many, many years ago from Euston to London - was that so far out? It could be that the current route takes in places along the route that people want to stop off at. Whereas, the HS2 route ignores everywhere else, making a beeline for the outskirts of Birmingham (once you arrive on your 250 mph non-stop train to Brum, you have a much slower trail of at least 10 miles into the heart of the city).

People will need to want to really travel to and from London to Birmingham up to 14 times an hour to make this high speed journey worthwhile.

Click through to view the route on our Travellers Club YouTube Channel.

After an unusually mild festive season, many people may have felt it was a great opportunity to have an extended break after the New Year. But typically with higher then average temperatures in Britain, it never lasts for long. The extreme weather on Tuesday represented the mood of thousands of people struggling to return to work and it is not a surprise that this period in January is known for being the most depressing all year. Gusts in excess of 100mph were recorded from a winter storm crossing the UK. The Met Office issued a Red Weather Warning for the winds on Tuesday morning.

Thousands of people in Britain were left without power, in Northern Ireland 10,000 properties were left without electricity after fallen trees and severe winds damaged power lines, causing hundreds of faults. About 8,500 properties in parts of Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire have were left without power. In Wales six homes in Dolgellau, Gwynedd, were evacuated because of arcing power lines in high winds. Worst hit was Scotland’s central with at one stage 60,000 homes were without power.

The weather caused many tragedies all over Britain, such as a man in his 50s was killed in Kent when a tree collapsed on his van, a crewman died after being injured on board a tanker in the English Channel and a bus driver in Surrey suffered serious injuries when a tree fell on his bus.

The weather was so extreme that a waterfall appeared to defy gravity when, instead of gushing down, it flowed upwards towards the skies. The image was captured close to Great Dun Fell in the Pennines where a wind speed of 106mph was recorded on Tuesday. Also people were warned off walking along the harbour in Dorset where 45ft waves rolled in.

All across Britain it was a horrible time for people wishing to travel around, to and from Britain on all types of transport. Buildings were damaged, roads closed and trains, flights and ferries were cancelled. High seas and force 10 winds caused the port of Dover to shut all morning and ferry services to and from the Isle of Wight were cancelled causing thousands of people to have to wait for the extreme weather to pass. There were no East Coast services operating within Scotland, and East Coast Main Line trains between London and Scotland were going no further north than Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Buses replaced trains on many services between London and Harrogate and Hull.

Also in Scotland, the Kingston Bridge in Glasgow was shut by two overturned Lorries, Glasgow Airport flights warned that cancellations were expected because of high winds and Edinburgh Airport did not allow incoming flights to land. The Environment Agency issued 20 flood warnings across the country, including 13 in the South West, three each in the Midlands and the North East, and one in Wales. Strong winds and gales are also expected across the UK today in particularly in the north of England and Scotland but it will be less windy than Tuesday and gusts are not expected to reach more than 40-45mph.

Did you encounter any extreme weather? Get in touch and let us know.