World Reviewer blog

What happens when backpackers grow up? Once you’ve explored the world at your wandering own free will you might balk at the idea of joining a tour group where you’re expected to follow round someone holding up a random article on a stick to keep your group together… But you don’t have to join the bus tour just yet – hostels have grown up as well. Now instead of queuing for the pleasure of a cold shower you can backpack with all the mod cons, including free internet access, your very own power outlet, free breakfasts and coffee, free language lessons, a pool – with a DJ bar next to it - and a business centre, as well as a 24 hour hot water guarantee. So have a look at our list of posh-tels for flash-backers and experience all the freedom and social life of being on the road but with those added creature comforts we’ve come to appreciate as we’ve gotten a little older and more discerning.

It’s so much easier to learn things when you’re a kid. It’s also less embarrassing. Especially if it’s learning something that can involve a lot of falling over. Which is why World Reviewer has put together the list of Top Ski Resorts for Families and the North American equivalent, Top Ski Resorts for Families Too (USA).

This has to be the most extreme experience I’ve ever heard about.  Makes me feel tired just reading it.  In fact I think I’m going to go and make myself a bowl of hot chocolate before I read it over again, I think you should do the same.  But it’s worth reading it, I think it absolves me of actually having to do it myself…

Inspired by Borough Market, here’s a new WR article about slow food: ‘Life’s too short to eat Supermarket tomatoes’.

Here’s the latest in my series of lil’ London docs., The Science Museum in South Kensington. I’ve always been a fan of hands on exhibits and the Science Museum does a pretty good job of it - which you can see from all the people in the background who were seriously hampering my ability with the camera! I got a bit involved with the idea of seeing the grandparents of all the technology we take for granted today - even I understand enough about how things work to know how a steam engine works but when it comes to things like computers and MRI machines it all gets a bit magical. One of the highlights had to be the HUGE computer with the hundreds of blue wires making all the connections like synapses in the brain of something…makes me see my laptop with a renewed sense of magic.

The Natural History Museum is planned for this weekend.

World Reviewer gets asked some unusual questions but though no one has been popping that question to me I have been asked to suggest some potential proposal backdrops.  The top of the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building are pretty packed out with men on bended knee and a gondola in Venice is a bit unoriginal and fraught with potential mishap, so I came up with my own list (take heed boys), and called it ‘If I had three lives, I’d marry you in two’ after my all time favourite romantic song lyric.

London’s light and non-too-balmy summer evenings are perfect for outdoor theatre and I’ve been lucky enough to get a few invites to one of the best spots for it, Shakespeare’s Globe. So far I’ve seen the powerfully dramatic King Lear and a new work about London life in 2008 called The Frontline – both definitely experiences. In fact I enjoyed my trips there so much I made a little video documentary about the Globe, in case you can’t get there for yourself. I’d definitely recommend it.

Seems to be that most of my friends are taking their summer break on an island. Even the one going to New York is technically going to a land mass “girt (as the Australian national anthem says) by sea”.

Most of them had an idea of the kind of holiday they were looking for, be it experiencing a new culture, catching up on some water sports, cheap shopping, relaxation, sun, sun, sun… And most of them hung around our Worldreviewer list of Island Paradises looking for just the right destination. I’m not sure what it is about being on a land mass cut off from other landmasses, but something about it does imply holiday… So to help them, and anyone else who is still looking for a vacation destination here is a guide to potential island paradises: Imagine yourself on your own island…

At moment of typing WR has 6237 recommended experiences…

That is a lot to look through. So in an effort to make things easier to find we have decided to write more articles (weekend paper travel supplements-esque.) grouping our experiences for different reasons. At the request of an amorous anonymous friend of mine who keeps asking me where to take his intended, one of the first is about romantic places to escape in the summer time when old stalwarts Paris and Venice are packed to the gills with red, sweating, snapping crowds and Harry’s Bar is bursting at the seams, try our Romantic Summer Escapes

For those of you who spent last Glastonbury in more mud than you thought possible (and considering how much mud there is most years the fact that there could be more mud seemed impossible!) and are looking for another way to get your outdoor music fix, check out our Sounds of Summer - Great Summer Festivals.

If moving pictures is more your bag you can now see some of our top experiences come to life in the video tab on each experience.

Desk divers can fly over the Great Barrier Reef, work day rafters can paddle the Grand Canyon and nature lovers can mirror the basking of Galapagos seals as they bask in the glow of their computer screens…  and that’s just for starters.

Enjoy.  I have been.