Love from London: Luxury camping at British music festivals

by Iva Skoch on

Last year, some of Britain’s best music festivals got flooded (read: people – tents – muddy mess). This year, the UK is ready to cater to a traveler’s every need, even the ones that require 300-thread cotton sheets in their “tents.”

The Times offers a few tips, from luxury tepees with furniture and furs to carpeted cabins, via your own 10-man tour bus complete with booze rider. Read more here.

Here is the festival timeline for this summer:

  • Donington Park, Leicestershire, June 13-15

  • GLASTONBURY, Worthy Farm, Somerset, June 27-29

  • WAKESTOCK, Blenheim Palace, Oxford, June 27-29

  • CAMP BESTIVAL, Lulworth Castle, Dorset, July 18-20

  • THE SECRET GARDEN PARTY, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, July 24-27

  • CROISSANT NEUF, Usk, Monmouthshire, August 15-17

  • ELECTRIC PICNIC, Stradbally Estate, Co Laois, Ireland, August 29-31

Ticket prices to England just went down

by Grant Martin on

I’m not sure if there’s a secret sale going on or someone at US Airways messed up the feed today, but ticket prices to the UK for summertime travel just went down. This means that instead of paying 1200$ for that ticket from Chicago to London you now might be able to get away with about 600$. Quite an excellent price for summertime travel.

The fare sale seems to be centered solely around US Airways routes between the United States and London (LON) and Manchester (MAN) with travel between Monday and Thursday. If you’d like a dandy tool to check availability, use this Farecompare link to view a calendar. Plug in your favorite airport in the departure box to check if the fare is available from your city.

London not where you want to go? Consider booking your transatlantic leg into London then booking a separate ticket from there to your final destination (it’s called nesting). You can either go through a canonical search engine like Kayak or Opodo, or try your luck at a Low Cost Carrier via flylc.com.

Happy summer travels.

Prince Harry withdrawn from Afghanistan, says “I don’t like England much”

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Though it’s been kept a secret by the British media, Prince Harry has been on active duty in Afghanistan since December. The news finally leaked out yesterday on the Drudge Report, and British officials have decided that, due to security concerns, the 23-year-old prince will have to come back to England.

Prince Harry was not pleased with the news. When asked if he’d ever want to return to Afghanistan, he said, “I don’t want to sit around in Windsor.”

He added: “I generally don’t like England that much and, you know, it’s nice to be away from all the press and the papers and all the general shite that they write.”

That’s an attitude I can’t help but love.

More here.

Love from London: The biggest tourist traps

by Iva Skoch on

I have been to London so many times, I don’t usually do the touristy thing any more. Sometimes, however, it is fun to visit the beaten path places just for the sheer humor involved.

With that premise, I attended a tour of Kensington Palace yesterday. My review? Save the £12 ($24) or spend it on beer instead. Yes, even warm beer. The tour must be one of the worst ways to spend your money, aside from–perhaps–investing in the Canadian dollar right about now. (This is, of course, coming from someone who chose journalism as a career, so clearly, my financial advice is to be taken with a grain of salt.)

I am here to report is that the Kensington palace consists largely of Princess Di stuff. And not even good stuff. Princess Di pictures, Princess Di wedding video, a few of her dresses and…that’s about it. A few of the preserved state rooms are worth seeing but overall this is a big disappointment. I don’t mean this to be disrespectful to the late princess, but I find it appalling that her personal tragedy has turned into such a great source of income for people.

Which brings me to my next point. I hear that nothing beats the London Dungeon tour in the biggest tourist trap ranking. Then again, tonight I am supposed to join the Jack the Ripper tour and I could easily see that one winning this competition. Stay tuned!

Love from London: The most expensive streets in England & Wales

by Iva Skoch on

The advantage of being in London is that you stop thinking about New York as an expensive city. If you are considering relocating here, you might need to know a little bit about the London “unreal estate.”

The other day, I was reading in The Times about The 20 Most Expensive Street in England and Wales. To give you a taste of the pricing in London, here is the Top 10:

  1. Courtenay Avenue, N6: average property value – £6,803,900 (to get the figures in $, just double it)
  2. Chelsea Square, SW3: average property value – £6,440,600
  3. Manresa Road, SW3: average property value – £6,193,300
  4. Ilchester Place, W14: average property value – £5,840,200
  5. Gilston Road, SW10: average property value – £5,584,100
  6. Carlyle Square, SW3 : average property value – £5,581,300
  7. Eldon Road, W8: average property value – £5,512,000
  8. The Vale, SW3: average property value – £5,439,400
  9. Carlton Gardens SW1Y: average property value – £5,285,300
  10. Albert Place W8: average property value – £5,255,500

London and the South East account for the majority of streets with the highest property values across England and Wales; top prices in these two regions are more than double the value of the most expensive streets in some other regions. Wales has the region’s lowest average prices; with the top street reaching £897,400, it is the only region whose top street does not break the million pound mark.

If you don’t have $20M to throw around, don’t worry. You won’t be excluded from the pricing madness here. Even hostels are expensive in London.