With my head firmly buried in four separate major guidebook projects (including a completely revamped edition of Tuscany & Umbria With Your Family due out in April), as well as commissioning some great new additions to the Instant Cities series of iPhone apps, this Autumn has been a little light on the journalism front. In addition to a feature on essential technologies to take travelling, for Singapore Airlines’ inflight magazine SilverKris (not online), I wrote about Finding the best late holiday deals for the UK’s Sunday Telegraph. The piece covered private sales and auctions, smartphone and iPad apps, deals newsletters, luxury hotel discounters, Twitter, Facebook, cashback sites, forums and voucher websites. Anyway, read it all at telegraph.co.uk.

More coming soon…

It’s been a busy few months working on two new guidebooks plus the new edition of an Italian phrasebook, but here are links to a couple of my recent contributions in print.

Every September, history and architecture buffs have a field day as countless private and government buildings across Britain throw open their doors to visitors – for free.

For Singapore Airlines’ SilverKris magazine; read it all at silverkris.com

One of my favourite Dorset walks takes me in and around the “ghost village” of Tyneham, by the southern coast of the Isle of Purbeck. This farming hamlet at the foot of Ridgeway Hill was requisitioned by the War Office in 1943 (the area was suited to gunnery practice), with a promise that it would be returned to the villagers after the war… It never was.

A short contribution to the Telegraph‘s “Best countryside holidays in Britain”; read it all at telegraph.co.uk

Finding the best late holiday deals online. It isn’t only tour operators’ websites that offer bargain holidays. For the best deals, you have to look farther afield.

Read it all at telegraph.co.uk

One of the (many) things I find genuinely useful about Twitter is the ability to get an instant answer or opinion on just about anything. Like this:

Wondering: in the medium term, which is worth more to a tourism business: 1. Nice mention in a guidebook. 2. Nice mention in a paper. Ideas? [@hackneye]

I  didn’t really have a motive for asking this, other than genuine, theoretical curiosity. It strikes me that many PR companies put a lot of effort into courting periodical, weekly and daily media, and a whole lot less time on guidebook writers. Maybe PRs know something that isn’t immediately apparent to me. [Read more →]

First there was Flashdance, then there were flash mobs, now there are flash sales, where goods are offered at massive discounts for a limited period. The concept began in the high-street stores in an effort to galvanise consumer spending, but it lends itself perfectly to travel, too, and companies are starting to offer their own flash sales, with special deals available for anything from 15 minutes to a fortnight. Some of this summer’s deals promise huge savings – but blink, or at least, go and make a cup of tea, and you could miss out.

Read the rest at Telegraph.co.uk

It’s more immediate than blogging, less frivolous than Facebook, more social than SMS or instant messaging – and suddenly it’s everywhere. Sometimes known as micro-blogging, Twitter is simple: write what you like in up to 140-character chunks, then send it to everyone in your network.

But it is far more than simply an outlet for those with a dubious compulsion to share. Twitter has already broken major news stories, for example. Indians caught up in November’s Mumbai attacks tweeted (that’s the verb) well ahead of news media.

Now it’s being taken up by business, and travel is in the vanguard.

Read the rest at Telegraph.co.uk.

Then ‘How to set up your Twitter account‘.

And if you’re interested in travel, try my recommended ‘50 great travel tweeters‘.

(Also ran in print in the Sunday Telegraph, 22 February.)