Ten essential British foodie experiences

I spent the first seven years of my life in the United Kingdom and still have some British terms and phrases in my vocabulary.

Landscapes as green and lovely as everyone says. Literary giants in Dublin; Titanic history in Belfast. A pint and good craic in a traditional pub. The lure of Celtic legends.

A few days before I was due to return to London from Sydney, I upgraded my $6,500 British Airways ticket from business class to first class for an additional $500. 

Italy’s Riviera di Ponente, or Western Riviera, has long attracted travelers—in the late 19th century new rail connections made it easier for well-heeled and titled English and Russians to escape their dreary winters, but before and after WWII, destinations on the Côte d'Azur and Riviera di Levante (the Eastern Riviera), like Rapallo, Portofino, and later, Cinque Terre, stepped into the spotlight, drawing celebrity names and eventually flocks of tourists.

When the food on a British Airways flight from the Caribbean to London went bad over the weekend, the crew came up with an im-peck-able plan B — with a little help from KFC. 

New Zealand's most populous city sprawls across an isthmus between two harbours, its downtown commercial district perched on the waterfront of the Waitematā, a spiky cluster of skyscrapers and sails. Auckland is home to the largest Polynesian population – and one of the most culturally diverse populations – in the world, and its refreshingly unique food culture is heavily inspired by this multiculturalism, along with the region's fertile volcanic soils and its bounty of seafood.

Taking your car on a Brittany Ferries trip to Europe is a great way to start your holiday, and much easier than hauling your luggage overseas and then hiring a car. And your holiday really does start the moment you drive on board, with award-winning service and plenty of space to relax and unwind. To make sure you set off well prepared, here are 10 road trip essentials to check before you leave.

For five days of the year each summer, the somewhat soulless exhibition centre in Earls Court is transformed into a giant pub (pictured above). Or at least that’s what it feels like. Gone are the trade stalls and suited delegates, replaced by an army of (mostly bearded) volunteers manning hundreds of kegs, dispensing beers few people have ever heard of to thousands of squiffy punters – a lot of whom are wearing traffic-cone hats or sombreros for no apparent reason.

From cricket at Lords to darts in Lakeside and boxing in London, here's ten of our favourite British sporting breaks. Share your own below.

Get up close to nature with our pick of the ten best wildlife sites across the UK, and let us know your own top British wildlife experiences below.

He has met cannibals in Papua New Guinea, played with mountain gorillas in Rwanda and has several flower and animal species named after him. In a career of more than sixty years, naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough’s name is synonymous with utterly absorbing wildlife documentaries, including 1979’s Life on Earth, which became a yardstick for quality wildlife show production.

It's that fateful A-level results day again, when hundreds of thousands of hard-working students will be taking one last trip back to school to discover the outcome of those arduous and intense exams they took at the beginning of the summer. Essentially, two years of hard work will all culminate in one single letter today, and while many will be hoping they got the grade for their first choice university, others will start looking for adventure as they begin a gap year.