Mail to the US has been delayed by a day due to heavy storms in the area. Normal service has now been restored.

Whitehaven Maritime Festival is on this weekend. Several historic tall ships will be there including the Grand Turk, The Zebu and The Matthew of Bristol. The festival lasts for three days starting today and entry is free. There are also air displays featuring the red arrows as well as a display deaturing a Spitfire and a Hurrican as well as many other attractions. There are more details on whats on here.

One of the articles on his site I found of particular interest was Avoiding the Shower Menace: Tips For Travelers not Inmates, the article talks about a particular travel menace I am only too familiar with ELECTRICS! Yes out of all the dangers in the travel books this one is not given the attention it deserves, too many times have I stopped at some out of the way hostel or local low cost hotel and almost suffered serious injury from the rather dodgy wiring on the so called power shower! Nathan offers some good advice here, I in particular don't go near any electrical's that don't look safe and try to avoid places like this. In my earlier years back packing I didn't have that option and many of us sometimes don't when we find ourselves in a new city in the middle of the night.

Many of our readers (primarily the backpackers among you) may have heard of Nathan before in travel magazines such as BudgetTravelOnline, Travelmag and BackPackers.com.

There is an interesting article on the Times website showing how the cost of holidays abroad from the UK could go up because British Airways is increasing its fuel surcharge.

Mail will be delayed in the Luton area due to a 24-hour strike which started this morning. Around 150,000 letters a day are handled by the Luton office.

If you are planning a trip to Ireland and like me find it hard to survive with no internet access you might want to visit Carlow. A project run by the council in partnership with E-net has introduced 24 hour wireless access to all of its main streets making it one of the first towns in the EU to offer open air web access.

If you are taking your car abroad you should check your motor insurance to make sure you are covered, that’s according to this article. Most drivers do not realise that their comprehensive policy does not apply when driving outside the UK. Apparently only one in ten policies include European breakdown cover and policies that do include it will often only give third party cover when driving outside the UK. So if you are planning on taking your car abroad it’s sensible to call your insurer to make sure you are covered before you go.

Mail to parts of Derbyshire will be delayed following a localised postal strike. The strike will last for four days from Wednesday 30th of May to Saturday 2nd June when normal service will be resumed. The strike is as part of a protest at the closure of Heanor sorting office.

Have you been somewhere interesting recently. Do you have a travel story you want to share? Or perhaps some advice that will help other travellers. Then we want to hear from you. You can submit your travel stories by emailing us 

Fees can really mount up when using your debit card abroad. It doesn't help when you think your card is free to use and then find out that you have been charged a fee after all. HSBC advertise the fact that their debit cards are free from transaction fees when used abroad. They do however, charge 2.75% on top of the exchange rate for overseas withdrawals which they say is not a fee, its simply how they calculate their exchange rate. It sounds like a fee to me.