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The jewel of the Arabian Peninsula

Fri, 11 May 2012 13:41:06 GMT

Whether you want a beach holiday, a bustling city break or a desert adventure, the unique destination of the Sultanate of Oman can provide it all

Highs and lows: Simon Calder visits the dramatic Masada fortress in Israel's Negev Desert

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:00:00 GMT

Plumbing and travel rarely intersect happily. Pipes and cisterns are usually of interest to holidaymakers only when, in a cheap hotel or aboard an expensive cruise, they go wrong – often in an alarming and inconvenient manner. But in a dramatic fortress high above Israel's Negev Desert, the plumbing system is the climax of an extraordinary location.

The Hedonist: Tel Aviv

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:00:01 GMT

Checking into one of the apartment suites at Tel Aviv's Nina Café Hotel (00 972 52 508 4141; ninacafehotel.com) on Shabazi Street in Neve Tzedek, I let the cool, discreet ambiance of the property soothe my travel-battered chi. She demanded more, though, leaving me for the alleyways and tile-roofed houses of the Neve Tzedek neighbourhood, en route to her favourite spa cradled within the majestic Suzan Dellal centre for dance (00 972 3 510 9876; spanevetzedek.co.il)

Travel Challenge: Luxury Dubai

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:30:00 GMT

Each week we invite three companies to offer us their best deal for a specific holiday. Today: a five-night luxury break in Dubai. Prices are per person, based on two people sharing. Each package includes breakfast and flights from Heathrow on Thursday 1 March.

Traveller's Guide: Dubai

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Blissfully balmy by day, cool and breezy in the evenings – the weather is what brings most visitors to Dubai at the start of the year. Temperatures in the emirate drop considerably from a peak of about 45C in July, and the humidity dissipates. Now the days are warm enough to work on your tan or take a dip in the Arabian Sea, while the nights are decidedly cooler, averaging about 15C.

Journey to the Source: Bethlehem

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 00:00:01 GMT

On Christmas Eve, all the stars should be lining up to point Holy Land visitors towards that little town of Bethlehem. But where is it? Not much more than five miles from the heart of Jerusalem is one answer. From your Jerusalem city-centre hotel, an Israeli tour bus will zip you there, drop you in Manger Square – a stone's throw from the Church of the Nativity – and you need never know you've crossed one of the world's most contentious borders, and passed through that controversial separation wall that divides Israel from Palestine.

On The Road: Bewildered on a Bedouin back-road en route to Petra

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 23:00:01 GMT

We were lost. John scanned the sea of sandstone that stretched out to the horizon and finally conceded defeat.

The filth and the fury: A mountain of rubbish is blighting Lebanon's once-beautiful beaches

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 23:00:01 GMT

The wretched of the earth high above turquoise blue seas; take a face mask with you before you clamber up the Jabal al-Zbeleh – the 'Mountain of Rubbish' – and just imagine the beauty of the beach that still exists six storeys of muck below you. These days, you might need the face mask when you observe Lebanon's politics, but the moment you see the middle-aged Palestinians of this place, filthy and gaunt, their shirts and trousers pasted with the detritus of Lebanon, you can only feel compassion. They work high atop this vile garbage heap, to ferret out old plastic and leather and metal and still-ripe tomatoes amid flies and rats and wild dogs and rotten food and used hospital syringes and torn-open sacks of household rubbish and methane gas.

Endoscopy for penguin stranded in New Zealand

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 08:22:45 GMT

An Antarctic penguin which ended up stranded and eating sand on a New Zealand beach is recovering after a very human treatment - an endoscopy.

Palestinians to seek UN state recognition

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 07:36:00 GMT

The West Bank Palestinian leadership formally decided to press ahead with efforts in September to win United Nations recognition of a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

An authentic insight into the Arab world

Sat, 28 May 2011 23:00:01 GMT

Why visit?

Welcome to easyJet's big adventure.

In Abu Dhabi, they need to keep their feet on the ground

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 23:00:01 GMT

The single humped dromedary lies on the right side of its round, multi-chambered stomach.

Policeman dies amid Syrian protest

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 10:01:44 GMT

A Syrian policeman is reported to have died after being beaten by protesters during a demonstration in a central city.

Ask the traveller: Holiday bargains

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 23:00:01 GMT

Q: Are there any deals at the moment, given the twitchiness resulting from the Arab spring uprisings? There must be bargains for the brave.

"Peggy Sue", via email

The town they can't keep down

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 00:00:01 GMT

Why visit?

Traveller's Guide: Syria

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 00:00:47 GMT

Libya, Iran, Iraq, Cuba, North Korea and... Syria: according to the last Bush administration, these half-dozen nations comprise the Axis of Evil. Yet walking by the Mediterranean coast, threading through the timeless streets of Damascus or clambering around a desert citadel, it is hard to reconcile Syria as a "rogue state". For its urbane self-possession, borne out of cultural roots which plunge deeper than anything Europe can match, Syria fascinates. Above all, the joviality and irreverent approachability of the Syrian people make the greatest impression on the visitor.

The Experts' Guide To The World: Israel

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 00:00:01 GMT

It may seem quirky to pick a busy street corner as your favourite place in a city, but this is no ordinary corner. With your back to the sea, look up the length of the wide Ben Gurion Avenue from its intersection with Ha'atzmaut and wonder at the most beguiling sight in Haifa, Israel's mellowest city: the manicured park, stretching up the Carmel hillside, and the golden domed shrine that is one of the two holiest places in the Baha'i faith. But that's not all there is to this corner, which is not just a junction between two streets, but between east and west, past and future, Jew and Arab.

The Experts' Guide To The World: Beirut

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 00:00:01 GMT

It's Hariri's table, just to the right of the main door, the seat with its back to the street, just where he always took café au lait, just where he took coffee with friends seven minutes before he was assassinated. The murder of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri – via the UN tribunal's indictment of the supposed murderers – has placed Lebanon as close to the abyss as it has been for many years. And for a few weeks after his Valentine's Day massacre in 2005, along with 20 others, the Etoile restaurant kept a coloured photograph of the dead man, grey-haired, smiling wanly, upright at his seat.

Iran: A journey from Tehran to Esfahan reveals a country of beauty and poetry

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 00:00:56 GMT

"In the name of God," said the form we had to fill in to get a press card. Was it "in the name of God" that we had to shroud ourselves in loose clothes and headscarves, the minute our plane landed on Iranian soil? Was it "in the name of God" that nearly all the women we saw, as we crawled through the rush-hour traffic from Tehran airport, were wearing black? And it's in the name of God, presumably, that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has, for the past five years, been living under the threat of being stoned to death.

The Hedonist: Abu Dhabi

Sat, 18 Dec 2010 00:00:43 GMT

Mouna, my adorably incorrigible Lebanese partner in crime, meets me upon arrival at the gleaming airport. We've been great friends since my first trip, when Abu Dhabi was still prim and proper compared to wild child Dubai next door. We hop into her tiny red Mini and begin the white-knuckle ride that passes for driving in this part of the world.

Oman: Dive in to a magical world

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 00:00:05 GMT

There is something magical about seahorses. They have a sort of aloof beauty which sets them apart from even the most colourful or acrobatic of their fishy counterparts. In all my years of diving, I have only ever encountered a few.

Brilliant Beirut

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:00:13 GMT

If you want a weekend of the purest hedonism, it might seem poor taste to choose a city which has endured more misery than any of us could imagine. On the other hand, what if that same city has – between militia mayhem, bombardments, and assassinations – always been somewhere that knows how to party? Beirut is just such a place.

A child's-eye view of an ancient land

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 23:00:01 GMT

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a young country, yet it is a very grown-up place. For those pondering a holiday riven with historical and religious significance, there are few places to rival its status as a geographical primer for Bible studies.

A return to the Emirates: Mishal Husain's journey back to the UAE was a family holiday with a difference

Fri, 07 May 2010 23:00:01 GMT

A trip down memory lane is a little tricky if, like me, yours was an expatriate childhood. Mine was spent in the United Arab Emirates – 10 happy years from 1975, when I was two years old – which makes it the first home I can remember. But the UAE isn't somewhere I pass through much these days and my friends from there are scattered across the globe. Even if I did venture back, the ever-changing urban landscape is more than likely to have rendered once-familiar locations unrecognisable.

The Hedonist: Dubai

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 23:00:01 GMT

Want to party like an Emirati? Perhaps you don't know it yet, but you almost certainly do. Because Dubai's beautiful people – in truth, a mixed bag of expats rather than locals – are a United Nations of sylph-like sirens and minted magnates. Happily for these fashion fans, the opening of the Armani Hotel, halfway up the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, which has been postponed three times, has now been announced for next Wednesday, so they'll soon be able to sleep chez Giorgio.