This festive season, Orient Express unveils “A Journey, Written to Last”, a cinematic celebration of the journeys, encounters and gestures that become lasting memories. At the heart of the campaign, a film unfolds like a story told through letters, following a guest on an evocative journey across three extraordinary worlds: Orient Express La Minerva in Rome, Orient Express Venezia and La Dolce Vita Orient Express.

Breakfree Holidays, the family-owned British travel business offering affordable holidays across the UK and Europe, has unveiled a bold new brand identity and website as the next generation of the Sakal family sets out to challenge outdated perceptions of holiday parks and introduce the business to a wider, younger audience. Having helped more than 20 million people enjoy a holiday, and with roots dating back to 1989, Breakfree Holidays is embarking on a new chapter, combining its longstanding commitment to affordability with a bold new identity, an enhanced digital booking experience and an extensive portfolio spanning British coastal escapes, European holiday parks, cottages, lodges, hotels and boating holidays.

Hanoi recorded the fastest growth in accommodation searches among solo travelers in 2026, with searches rising 22% in the second half of the year, according to digital travel platform Agoda. The finding arrives as 11.11 Singles Day celebrates the joy of doing things independently, from treating yourself to a trip to setting your own itinerary. Agoda’s accommodation search data shows that Tokyo, Bangkok and Seoul were the most popular destinations for solo travelers according to searches made between July and October 2026, followed by Osaka and Kuala Lumpur rounding out the top five.

Nigel Ng Kin-ju is in Los Angeles, adjusting a coffee grinder and apologising for the noise, when he tries to account for the past seven years over the phone. The voice on the line is his own – not the exaggerated Cantonese-inflected pidgin English of Uncle Roger, his orange-polo-wearing alter ego who famously roasted a BBC egg-fried rice tutorial in 2020 – but the measured, faintly amused tone of a 35-year-old Malaysian who still seems to be watching his own plot unfold from a slight...