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

Love from London: The best pub in Britain

by Iva Skoch on

As you well know, the Brits take their pubs very seriously, so nobody should be surprised that they actually vote for the best pub in the country every year. The judges say the competition “analyzes all the criteria that makes a good pub – including the quality of the beer, atmosphere, décor, customer service, clientele mix and value for money.”

According to the Times Online, the The Old Spot Inn in Dursley, Gloucestershire, a 100-year-old inn has won the 2008 Pub of the Year award from the Campaign for Real Ale, “despite having no juke box, pool table, fruit machine or theme.” Fruit machine or theme, I love that.

You can actually watch the video to get a feel for the atmosphere here, but I’ll tell you – when it comes to pub crawling, virtual reality doesn’t really come close to the real thing. We’ll have to wait for some sort of “Third Life” before we can actually enjoy a virtual beer.

Is the beer too cheap in Britain?

by Justin Glow on

Apparently, some people in Britain are mad because stores are charging less for beer than they are for bottled water.

When I was in parts of Czech Republic and Poland last month, beer was always cheaper than water. And did it affect me? Well, yes, it did — but that’s because I had a hard time discerning which bottles of water were carbonated or not. There were times when I never did figure it out, and if I’m going to drink a bubbly beverage, it’s not going to be water. And you’d have to take out a small personal loan to pay for 7 ounces of Coke Light, so what am I supposed to do? Get the cheapest thing available: beer.

But some people in Britain feel differently. They’re afraid that lowering the cost will increase sales and therefor increase binge drinking. It’s hard, for the most part, to disagree with them — it makes economic sense. If you lower the cost of an item people are regularly buying, chances are they will purchase more of that product.

“Evidence from Finland also suggests a link between price and consumption. There, tax on alcohol was slashed by 40 per cent in 2003,” according to an article by This is London. “Since then, drink sales have soared 11 per cent.”

They are, however, failing to make a link between increased sales and binge drinking. Someone could be buying a bunch of the cheap beer and storing it in their basement for all the government knows. Can you assume that lower cost equals increased consumption? I, for one, welcome the cheap beer.

Related:

Hotel staff trained to deal with naked sleepwalkers

by Catherine Bodry on

Apparently, there’s been a surge in sleepwalking among guests in one of Britain’s largest budget hotel chains. And the sleepwalking itself wouldn’t be a huge problem, except that the majority of these zombie-like guests don’t bother to put any clothes on before they take their nocturnal stroll.

Reuters reports that the budget chain Travelodge has seen a seven-fold rise in sleepwalking in the past year, and that 95 percent of late-night walkers are scantily clad men. As such, the company has begun training staff how to deal with naked wanderers.

The company released a “sleepwalkers guide,” which recommends keeping towels handy at the front desk — “in case a customer’s dignity needs preserving.”

“Look kids, Big Ben!” — Those Crazy Roundabouts

by Justin Glow on

One of the best travel-related scenes in a movie is from European Vacation when Clark and family enter the huge roundabout in London and can’t get out. “Look kids, Big Ben,” he says over and over again each time they round the circle. (Don’t know what I’m talking about? Here’s the scene on YouTube.)

My family and I found ourself in a similar situation once. We were in Paris; Dad was driving a rental car and we accidentally ended up in the hectic mess of cars that surrounds the Arc de Triomphe. I was pretty young at the time, but old enough to remember plenty of expletives coming from the front seat as I tucked my head between my legs and prayed. What’s worse is the only reason we found ourselves in that mess is because I wanted to go to the Hard Rock Cafe. Here I was in one of the largest cultural centers in Europe — home to places like the Louvre, the Pantheon, and Chateau de Versailles — and I wanted to see the Hard Rock Cafe. Let’s never speak of this again.

The photo above is of what’s known as the Magic Roundabout — “the world’s ultimate traffic-control system” — in Swindon, Wilshire, England. It was built in 1972, and features five mini roundabouts inside of one larger, parent roundabout. Check out more pictures and video after the jump. Yikes!


You can buy a t-shirt with this design on it.

Here’s video from the driver’s prospective. Note: wicked techno soundtrack included.

Easy, right?


This scares me.

And yes, we finally made it to the Hard Rock Cafe. I’ve got a shirt to prove it. [via]