• Australia/ Hawkesbury river

The water around the boat is like molten gold, the black hills ahead of us back lit by yellow-white light and the sky is a rhapsody of fleecy cloud in blue, pink, red, grey and orange

• Australia/Bondi

6.30am on a spring morning and I pull back the duvet in my North Bondi flat. Quickly, I throw on my running gear and am out of the door before my body can protest too loudly.

• Australia/camping

The 100 metre walls of Windjana Gorge are lit up like the heart of a flame. Behind them the sky is crowded with tawny clouds floating on an ocean of pink. As the sun dips imperceptibly on the horizon so the mirror-image of the glowing walls and the burnished background grows ever more perfect in the dusky water below.

• Australia/Canberra

At the centre of the room a Rubenesque woman is holding court, the light catching a twist of green at the front of her coal black hair

• Australia/diving

Below me circling somewhere beneath the swell are the lumpen outlines of not one but two 15 ft Great White Sharks.

• Australia/Fraser Island

Imagine a mammal the weight of eleven elephants rising full out of the sea and sploshing back down again with visible delight…

• Australia/Fraser Island

It’s hard not to get carried away when describing Fraser Island. Ask any Australian who’s seen a bit of their country for a list of their favourite places and the chances are this miracle of nature will be the near the top.

• Australia/Katherine and Flora rivers

In the corner of the small pool I make my sixth frantic attempt to mount the slippery underside of my upturned canoe, and try once more to drag my flailing legs from under the dusky waters of the Flora River

• Australia/Neptune Islands

Somewhere, unseen in the flaxen water nearby, were two 4.5 metre Great White Sharks

• Australia/northern territories

It’s around midnight and Mike Keighley has the banded tree snake by the tail. In the spotlight, the spaghetti-slim metre long serpent wriggles and curls, ready to bite the hand that grips it.

• Australia/Queensland

As you near the end of the two hour, six hundred kilometre small plane flight that brings you from Cairns to Haggerstone Island, it is hard to believe that you could possibly be this far north-east and still be in Australia.

• Australia/Sydney

The Observatory may not be the biggest or flashiest of Sydney’s five star properties but there is no better hotel in the city

• Austria/Cycling

I'm cycling softly down an asphalt track. The air is thick with heat, a tiny motion-created breeze cooling me.

• Canada/Vancouver

Settle into a corner room at the Four Seasons Hotel, with its extensive views over Vancouver and the surrounding hills and islands, and you will definitely feel like you have arrived at the top end of town

• China/ Hong Kong

The enormous 549 room Grand Hyatt hotel, on Hong Kong island, was rated highly enough to host Bill Clinton’s Presidential visit in 1998

• China/Hong Kong

At this original hotel in the Peninsula chain, thanks partly to the beaming staff, it doesn’t take long to feel both comfortable and equally convinced that, for once, the hype about the hotel is close to the truth

• Corsica/France

All around me there are granite peaks shaped like crumpled druids hats and below me lie thickly forested valleys and velvet mountain meadows.

• Czech Republic/Prague

It's as if an alchemist has taken all the southern catholic extravagance of Rome and Barcelona, mixed it with the northern grandeur of a Brussels or a Paris, added a unique twist of Bohemia, and come up with this compelling city.

• Fiji/ Yassawa Islands

Fed on a steady diet of nodding palms, pearly sand beaches, staggeringly blue seas and teeming reefs, not to mention a seemingly unstoppable conveyor belt of all-too edible food, you're that chilled out that not a lot taxes you.

• Fiji/Christmas

Fiji’s natural beauty white sand beaches, calm blue seas and nodding palm trees - remains a considerable pull.

• Flying/general

The best thing about the Virgin suite is simply its size. At 56cm wide and 208cm long, the seat is the largest “fully-flat bed in business class” as well as being broader than most First Class seats on other airlines

• France/Alsace

There are many good times to be introduced to the pleasures that define a holiday in Alsace. But when you are mid-way through the eight week Liver-Cleansing diet is not one of them.

• France/Burgundy

It's 4pm on a mid-summer Sunday afternoon in the belly of the Burgundy vineyards. Heat crowds the old town square. Barely a whisper carries across it. It's so still that the slam of a door now would seem like an earthquake.

• France/Cooking Courses

There are good times to visit Alsace, France’s smallest region…

• France/Corsica

"The train is never late," jokes the beady-eyed black-bearded station master as we wait in the middle of the Corsican mountains for it to arrive, "but the timetable is often a little wrong."

• France/Paris

Opened in 1928, the George V melds the historic, from its Art Deco façade and gilt-edged lobby, with the modern, with its high-ceilinged rooms equipped with the latest communications systems.

• France/Paris

If you want to be close to the cultural hub of Paris then no property is better located than the Hotel Meurice

• France/Paris

The Plaza Athenee is the playful sister-hotel to the Hotel Meurice, located among the couture shops on the chestnut-tree lined Avenue Montaigne.

• French Polynesia

What meets the eye at Le Meridien Bora Bora certainly fulfills most visions of a tropical paradise

• French Polynesia/Bora Bora

Overwater bungalows like a string of shiny, dark Tahitian pearls in front of a half-mile stretch of vanilla-coloured sand

• French Polynesia/Tahiti

Strangely, there is no fear. As we anchor ourselves onto the reef, a total of eight large silvertips now surround us. A flurry of excited bubbles rises from our mouths as the sharks jink and circle around us

• French Polynesia/Tahiti

All in all, Le Meridien Tahiti does a fair job of being a luxury property (staff are particularly friendly at the beach bars) with the amenities and functionality of an airport hotel

• Italy/ Rome

Currently the Rome darling of the glossy magazines, the Russie, close to the Piazza del Popolo, is also adored by an Armani-suited army from the nearby fashion houses.

• Italy/Lake Garda

In the right sunlight it looks resplendent, its golden walls reflected in the harbour in the foreground

• Italy/Lake Garda

You’d be hard pressed to find a classier, more comfortable hotel than this anywhere on the shores of Lake Garda.

• Italy/Perugia

It was on a balmy night during the Italian summer, sitting in a central Perugia night club, that I had the most cause to be thankful that I'd decided to spend time learning the language at the town's university

• Italy/Rome

The views from the Michelin-starred La Terrazza restaurant rank amongst the best in Rome.

• Italy/Rome/Spanish Steps

• Italy/Sardinia

There is a touch of Disney about this beautifully-set Faux castle, built in 1880 right on the rocky north-west coast of Sardinia, in the seaside town of Alghero.

• New Zealand/Auckland

Dusk. Off Crusoe Rock, Hauraikai Bay, near Auckland, New Zealand

• New Zealand/Milford Sound

All around us are towering, glowering peaks rising with perfect irregularity from the flat, green waters of the fjord.

• Northern Ireland/Rathlin Island

My lungs were flushed with fresh salty air from walking to each of Rathlin's reachable points, my mind's eye replaying the sight of up to 100,000 seabirds breeding on the island's steep cliffs…

• Portugal/Madiera

Like a migrating bird I have flown south and have landed in Madeira

• South Africa/Cape Town

• South Africa/Cape Town

In five days, my feelings for Cape Town had grown from mere infatuation to something more profound

• Spain/Barcelona

One of Barcelona's best located upper echelon hotels, situated in the core of the modernist Quadrat d’Or

• Spain/Barcelona

The property’s 5 stars all belong, by rights, to its diligent, enormously patient and downright kind staff, who don’t stop smiling in spite of the odds stacked against them

• Spain/Madrid

"Do you know what I love about this city?" asks Mark reflectively, at 5.30am, on a balcony overlooking the concourse of Madrid’s astonishing Atocha station: "The squares, the outdoor life, places to dawdle and gawp, bars to flit through on the way somewhere else."

• Sweden/Stockholm

Upmarket boutique hotel at the edge of Stockholm’s Old Town…

• Sweden/Stockholm

Certainly there can be few other hotels in the world where a light architect (in this case Kai Piippo) is responsible for the overall character of a property

• Sweden/Stockholm

The welcoming tipple, chocolate and accompanying note that you discover on squashing into your “cabin” at the Lord Nelson Hotel says a lot about this property. “Warmly welcome!

• Thailand/ Bangkok

There is nothing like a sense of tradition in a hotel to keep guests returning and the Oriental makes much of its 125 years of history

• Thailand/ Bangkok

The Sukhothai is a challenger for the title of Bangkok’s best luxury hotel.

• Thailand/Bangkok

Although undeniably corporate in feel the box-like Regent Hotel was voted “best hotel in Asia” by readers of Conde Nast Traveller as recently as 2001

• UK/canals

I have to admit to some doubts when I discovered that the location for our canal cruise was the Grand Union canal, starting near Leighton Buzzard…

• United Kingdom/Cornwall

Wallop! It’s not quite the introduction to Cornwall that I’d been hoping for. There I am, minding my own business outside the regional Tate gallery in St Ives, when I am assaulted and robbed in broad daylight.

• United Kingdom/Hook

• United Kingdom/Lancashire

We've just reached the summit of Pendle Hill in Lancashire when the image of the three wizened witches from Macbeth skips across my mind's eye.

• United Kingdom/London

Of all London’s genteel institutions it is the Dorchester Hotel that above all, continues to cut the mustard.

• United Kingdom/London

his is another London hotel that recalls the Empire and it is a little off the beaten track.

• United Kingdom/Southern Scotland

Daniel Scott sets off on foot and by bicycle to explore the border country of Scotland and England and finds a haven of peace and space among former battlefields and ancient castles.

• USA/ New York

In a city as frenetic as the Big Apple it is a boon to come home to calm, and the venerable Pierre Hotel, is one place where tranquillity is guaranteed.

• USA/ New York

One way to get away from it all in New York is to go up, and as the city’s tallest hotel, the Four Seasons gives ample opportunity to do this.

• USA/Anchorage

The Captain Cook could do with some love and attention in places but for the choice and range of facilities it remains the number one upper range choice of hotel in Anchorage.

• USA/Anchorage

This is an airport hotel, Alaskan style

• USA/Los Angeles

It was here that Marilyn Monroe began an affair with Yves Montand, during the filming of “Let’s Make Love”.

• USA/Los Angeles

The Beverly Hills Peninsula nearly lives up to the standards of the chain’s Hong Kong flagship.

• USA/San Fransisco

This is one of the best of the Ritz-Carlton brand of hotels, especially for those visiting San Francisco on business.

• USA/Seattle

Enthusiastic staff, who are generous with both time and advice, help round off generally good impressions at this first Grand Hyatt in the Pacific Northwest, and the hotel’s excellent location makes it easy to enjoy the many pleasures of this very civilized and manageable US city.

• Zimbabwe/Zambesi

But while there are several other moments of cartoon-like drama on our four day trip - mostly arising from close encounters with animals - the essence of this fully supported canoe safari is its serenity