Zip-line Thrills in Cebu City

Zip-lines aren’t particularly novel in South-East Asia, but there’s one a little different from all the rest. SkyExperience Adventure in Cebu City links two buildings – the one you jump off is 150 metres above the ground – via a 75-metre highwire. It takes just eight seconds to fly through the air to your destination, but then you also need to be winched back to the starting point. For extra thrills, take the plunge at night or hanging by your feet.

Simmer in hot springs

Hold onto your bathing suits because United Airlines have made it easier than ever before to fly from New York to Nuuk, Greenland if you’re in dire need of a hot spring soak.

They’ve just launched direct flights (the first time a US-based airline has ever done that), and there are thousands of hot springs across Greenland, but none quite like Uunartoq which can be easily accessed from Nuuk. Located in South Greenland, Uunartoq Island is completely uninhabited, making it the perfect spot to reconnect with nature.


Three converging warm streams keep its crystal-clear geothermal pool brimming with steamy water – even when the winter temperature drops below freezing. The stone-dammed pool is a plunge-perfect 37°C year round, thanks to the heat created by friction in layers of the Earth’s crust. Take a boat from the nearby islands of Qaqortoq or Nanortalik and sink into Uunartoq Hot Springs’ warm embrace against a backdrop of dramatic mountains and floating icebergs.

Tiny Primates in Bohol

Everyone loves a monkey but these little guys, who more closely resemble a mogwai than a chimp, aren’t the sort to clamber around playing games and picking bugs from one another’s fur. The Philippines is one of the few places you’ll still find tarsiers, although they’re very much in danger – their natural habitat is under threat and people think they make cute pets even though the nervous little creatures, being mostly nocturnal, tend to perish in captivity.


Near Bohol, you’ll find a sanctuary where the Philippine Tarsier Foundation is establishing a natural feeding and breeding space. Visitors can walk along paths below the trees and test their eyesight trying to spot tarsiers in the trees.

Sip Cocktails at a Bali Sunset

There are few better places to catch a Balinese sunset than El Kabron, perched on the edge of the cliffs of Bingin Beach.

With Spanish cuisine complemented by sangria and a cocktail list to quench any thirst, this Mediterranean-style bar and restaurant feels a long way from the madness of the more touristy areas of Bali.

Get there an hour or so before sunset and laze by the pool watching the surfers line up for the Bingin break that has made this beach an increasingly popular destination.

Surf Solomon Islands’ Deserted Breaks

Only a short drive from Gizo and a quick paddle off a postcard-perfect, white sand beach is Titiana surf break, a gentle right hander that breaks over a deep reef.

If you’re lucky you might share the break with a few of the local villagers, but more than likely you’ll have it all to yourself. The water is perfectly clear and warm enough that wetsuits are never needed.

The local surfers are overly friendly and inevitably you’ll find yourself sharing a post-surf beer at one of the local bars.

River of a Thousand Lingas

There’s something in the water. It’s eerie but don’t be afraid. Known as the River of a Thousand Lingas, Kbal Spean is a carved riverbed featuring thousands of elaborate 1000-year-old etchings, mostly phallic symbols of fertility known as lingas or lingams.


The Angkorian-era site is set deep in the jungle about 50 kilometres northeast of Siem Reap and also features carvings of animals and Hindu deities, which can be found above a small waterfall. To access the site, hire a tuk-tuk or motorbike from Siem Reap, then hike the steep two-kilometre walking track that winds through the jungle and past unique rock formations to the riverbed.

South Island session

It’s an old-fashioned Dunedin beer house that specialises in traditional ales. Speight’s Brewery is a South Island institution, and the brewers still use the same equipment and techniques today as their predecessors back in the 1940s.


Go on a tour and you’ll get to see, smell, touch and taste the ingredients that go into Speight’s finest. Understand the beauty of the bumps and gurgles of the hand-operated machinery and hear why the brewers prefer this classic equipment to more modern gear. There’s a 30-minute session at the end of the tour where you can master the art of pouring – and drink your failures.

Ship in the ice

It seems pointless forking out a fortune for a night on a motionless ship. Not so with the Noorderlicht. From spring to autumn this 100-year-old Norwegian schooner sails the world, but in winter she returns to the fjords of Svalbard, north of the Arctic Circle, and the embrace of enclosing ice.


With Temple Mountain as a backdrop, the Ship in the Ice offers travellers a taste of life as a polar pioneer, without forgoing modern comforts like electricity, hot water and a bar. You will need them after your epic adventure to get here. From Longyearbyen, the northernmost town in the world, it’s a 60-kilometre slog on a snowmobile or dogsled through a wonderland of fjords and mountains in –30°C, plus wind chill. When you arrive, the Dutch couple living on board will welcome you into one of 10 cosy cabins, fill your belly with a three-course meal and bring you up to date on sightings of the King of the Arctic, the famed polar bear.

Sleep in the clouds

It looks like a discarded piece of space junk marooned beneath the face of Grandes Jorasses in the Italian Alps, but this funky fibreglass capsule overhanging the Mont Blanc mountain range is possibly the world’s coolest climbers’ shelter. A night at the futuristic Bivacco Gervasutti costs just 10 euros, but promises million-euro views of the Freboudze glacier. Trust us, if you make it here you’ve earned them.


The 30-square-metre pod replaced an old wooden hut in 2011 and was built in the Italian town of Torino before being choppered into place at 2835 metres. Just as impressive as the location are the capsule’s high-tech specs; a CO2 censor and extractor, bio-toilet, computer and wi-fi facilities fit snuggly inside, along with lights and hot plates charged by a solar panel.

Bunker down in the Arctic Snow Hotel

You’ve heard of ice hotels, frozen bars and frosted restaurants, but Finland’s Arctic Snow Hotel says a little prayer to the winter gods with its very own ice chapel. Before hitting the hay – a frozen slab covered in furs – unwind in the hot tub then take a turn in the snow sauna. The melting walls fill the room with soothing steam, but overstay the 15-minute limit and you’ll defrost a puddle of trouble.

Turn on the aurora alarm when you get to your room and sleep soundly knowing you won’t miss any night-sky action. If an evening on ice isn’t your jam, book one of the hotel’s new Arctic Glass Igloos and watch the northern lights snake through the sky from the comfort of your bed.