Map tips

A lot of dishes were shattered during the pandemic. Although some breakage was accidental, incidental or ad hoc, the greatest damage was done in smash rooms, padded cells where people paid good money to sledgehammer remaindered crockery by the hour. Smash rooms were advertised as safe spaces to release Covid-induced anger and frustration. Many therapists questioned the effectiveness. One psychologist compared it to treating a gambling addiction by sending patients to Harrah’s.

When Martha Stewart is home on her 156-acre farm in Bedford, New York, she's knows exactly how to prep and fine-tune the flavors she wants to achieve. But as soon as she's off her home turf, she's all about sitting back and discovering the cuisine of a locale, as far-flung as it may be. 

Tucked between Vancouver Island’s pristine waterways, lush forests, and rugged wilderness is some downright delicious coastal cuisine. Chefs, distillers, and purveyors here rely on locally grown ingredients to infuse their creations with the flavors of the destination itself.

Abutting the US border with Canada, North Cascades National Park is a land of contrasts. Cerulean blue lakes sit at the foot of mountains forested in deep green pines, with their peaks capped in snow and pointing to the heavens. The park mirrors the various landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, shifting from mountainous areas dominated by rain showers and heavy snowfall to arid plateaus cut by glaciers since melted into alpine rivers and lakes. The park is remote, accessible only by the beautiful North Cascades Highway or from hiking trails to the north.

Getting from the West Coast to the Caribbean and Central America hasn’t historically been easy—there simply aren’t many nonstop flights, which makes for long travel days. But new offerings from Alaska Airlines could change that.

“You have to be careful,” warns Phil Wheeler, host at Preseli Hills Cottages, as we huddle over mugs of tea and an OS map tracing the route of the Golden Road, a seven-mile ramble along the spine of the hills. “I was up there the other day and I couldn’t see further ahead than this in the fog,” he says, his hand a few inches in front of his face. “Lots of the landscape features look alike, which can make navigation tricky. But there’s a special atmosphere up there. You feel things.” As an ex-military mountain guide and a competitor in the Preseli Beast fell-running race, he’s not a man to exaggerate. 

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.

If you've spent hours poring over Rough Guides maps you might be whizz at this carto quiz – but there's only one way to find out. We've taken ten of our city maps from around the globe and stripped off all street names, park labels, station makers and area stamps. Reckon you're a map magician? Or are you way off with your coordinates? Click start to see if you can work out the city from just the streets and rivers.

Australia's largest open-air art gallery is so vast that you'll need a car and a map to explore it. Deep in Victoria's farming country, the Silo Art Trail consists of grain silos adorned with epic portraits, spread across a distance of more than 125 miles.

From above, the Rupununi Savannah looks like a topography map in reverse. The green bumps are the hills, covered in dense vegetation, while the brown indentations and splodges indicate the paths of the overflowing rivers during the rainy season.

Thousands of foreign travellers visit the geysers, salt flats, oases and volcanoes of north Chile ’s Atacama Desert , but few make it to two of the region’s man-made attractions: the starkly beautiful ghost towns of Humberstone and Santa Laura. Shafik Meghji takes us into these abandoned settlements.

With its glittering royal palaces, ancient temples and sacred shrines as well as sandy beaches, some of the world’s best skiing and beautiful national parks, Japan is a country you'll want to return to again and again.

It’s a difficult time for everyone at the moment and not being able to discover the world may well be the least of your worries. But while your passport lies forlornly in the drawer, enforced time at home means you can at least start dreaming about an adventure beyond your four walls. Here at Rough Guides, we’d like to lift your spirits, hopefully make you smile, and help your imagination cross the continents, with this selection of videos from our youtube channel.

Experienced surfers looking for a pristine break are heading to a remote archipelago somewhere between Hawaii and the Philippines. The Marshall Islands are hard to find and even harder to get to – and of course, that’s part of their appeal. Most of the 29 coral atolls that make up the Islands are unknown to western travellers, only one – Bikini Atoll – stirs a look of recognition.

Walking: just putting one foot in front of the other, right? How hard can that be? Yes, a walking trip is something that anyone can do, but it is also something that needs preparation.

Minimise your footprint in Amsterdam with our green guide to the city, taken from travel bible The Rough Guide to Amsterdam .

Not far from the taxi horn-laden bustle of Shanghai , Moganshan is a bamboo-adorned retreat perfect for a weekend visit. Jamie Fullerton heads into the trees.

It’s no secret that Electric Vehicles (EVs) are the future and we’re seeing increasing numbers on the roads in the UK. But what are the benefits of driving an EV? How much does it cost to charge an electric car – do they help your back pocket, as well as the environment? How quickly do they run out of power and how fast can you recharge? Read on for the answers to all your questions about electric cars.

Slamming on my brakes, my bike came to a standstill in a country lane shaded by trees. A lone sheep stood in the middle of the road, bordered by 8ft high bushes. Looking left, then right, it baaed with confusion before galloping towards me and scampering up a bank.

Russian tour operators are pleading with vacationers to Crimea not to make decisions “based on emotions,” as Ukraine’s strike on the Crimea bridge on Monday played havoc on travel between the occupied Ukrainian peninsula and Russia.

For years, Argentina and Chile dominated the South American wine scene—both on the shelf and via vineyard tourism. But now, a buzzy grape called tannat is helping tiny Uruguay become a big thing in the oenophile world. A decade ago, Sophie Le Baux moved from Europe to Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital, to open Baco, a South American vinoteca. But when she tried Uruguay’s national tipple, tannat, she was horrified. “I thought, ‘Ugh, this is so hard to drink. How can I open a wine restaurant here?’”