Richard Johnson : The Green Correspondent

Alternative Egypt: Beyond Giza and into the desert in search of a civilisation's secrets

Off to the right, through the smog, we catch glimpses of the mighty Pyramids of Giza, seemingly floating over the city. Cairo is one of those places you can either embrace and enjoy or, after taking the required snaps (Pyramids, museum, maybe the market), depart from with all haste, shaking the dust from your shoes and expelling the smog from your lungs as you board a plane for Luxor.

Most tourists do just that, thereby missing out on the 600-mile land journey to Luxor through the Western Desert, and the opportunity to enjoy a fascinating landscape of unique beauty.

When confronted by the world's great icons of mass tourism, I often find myself wondering why I bother to visit them. There's no way of avoiding being part of a crowd, of being fed a predigested info-snack by guides who have spent four years learning how to get their clients in and out of a monument in a predetermined space of time. And yet I'm still drawn to these places, to the great icons of mankind's history; to the wonderful spectacles of nature. It's part of the payback for being human, perhaps: part of one's duty. For many years I've harboured blissful memories of camping under the star-bright skies of Jordan's desert, and I've always wanted to make a journey through the Western Desert of Egypt. And so, on Monday morning, a shiny, silver Toyota Landcruiser arrives at our hotel, equipped with a burly driver, Zizou, and a young, bespectacled and charming young guide, Mido. . . . full article

Featured members are Desert Lodge, Green Egypt

Fontelunga Hotel and Villas : Foiano della Chiana, Nr Arezzo, Tuscany

Dreaming among the olive groves in the soft sunlight of a Tuscan summer lies the perfect haven for weary Northern recession-survivors, this is Fontelunga.

Watch the video, then . . . book your stay!

Locanda della Valle Nuova : Fermignano, Urbino, Italy

The Locanda (Guest House) of the Valle Nuova Farm is in Pesaro e Urbino, just across the border from better-known Tuscany in a valley of surpassing beauty.

Watch the video, then . . . book your stay!

Christmas holidays abroad: Argentina to Chile and saddling up for a trek to the end of the world

When I was a boy, I thought of South America as being the home of the flamboyant Hollywood superstar Carmen Miranda - the Lady with the Tutti-Frutti Hat - who in the early Forties was the highest-paid star in the movies.

She wore her amazing headgear - a pyramid of bananas, strawberries, lemons and whatever else was available at the fruiterers - in a musical called The Gang's All Here in 1943.

But she first excited my adolescent interest in the earlier Down Argentine Way, in which her over-the-top sexiness outshone even the gloss of legs-up-to-here Betty Grable . . . full article

Featured members are Estancia Peuma Hue, CasaCalma Wellness Hotel, Isla Las Bandurrias

Turkey's Aegean Riviera: Backgammon and baklava on the high seas

'Hosh geldiniz!' says smiling Captain Nedim as we cross the gangplank to his beautiful yacht, the Grandi 1. 'Welcome!' Our party of seven family and friends board the 85ft gulet, a traditional wooden sailing vessel, after flying from London to Bodrum on Turkey's Aegean Riviera.

As soon as the sleeping arrangements are settled, the crew casts off from the pier and the captain steers the gulet out of port. Once he's cleared the harbour, the Grandi's huge sail is hoisted to catch the late afternoon breeze and we slip gently through the crystal waters --the only sound is the wind singing in the rigging. Chef Omer is already at work in the kitchen, preparing the first of many excellent meals we are to enjoy.

We drop anchor in a small and secluded bay and the guests gather on the spacious upper deck for drinks and a briefing about where we might go during our week aboard.

Our gulet is one of the largest operated by Ventus Sailing. It's well-equipped, with eight en suite cabins which, while not particularly spacious, contain beds that are wide and comfortable. Anyway, who's going to want to spend time below, except to sleep? . . . full article

Tomb raiding, fried tarantula and sunrise over the world's greatest wonders in Cambodia

"I was cast against type in Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. I played a super-rich, scheming, manipulative leader of a gang of miscreants bent on taking control of the world. (A banker, you ask?) Fortunately, Angelina Jolie saw through my evil plan and made sure it failed. In fact, she disposed of me before I even had a chance to reach pensionable age.

Recollections of that period of my life flooded back as I stood at one of the strangler-vine-encrusted doorways that lead to the interior of the ancient Temple of Ta Prohm, part of the Angkor Wat complex in Northern Cambodia. Supposedly, in the film, this entrance led to a vast underground chamber which housed a gigantic Orrery. (Orrery? Some sort of time-machine. Don't worry about it; it's a movie, dear.)

In actuality, since all the interiors were constructed, at enormous expense, in Pinewood Studios, I never went to Cambodia for the film. I did some dog-sledding on a glacier in Iceland - it's on the way to Cambodia, didn't you know? - but my Angkor Wat work was all in the studio.

So it was a thrill to experience the real thing, especially as it is widely, and rightly, counted among the wonders of the ancient world" . . . full article

Costa Rica's old man river

At the meeting place for Pacuare Jungle Lodge, a bunch of young guests, including a pair of honeymooners, are raring to go.

There are two ways to reach the Lodge from here: one is an hour's drive along a profoundly potholed track, followed by a two-hour hike down a steep, muddy trail into a ravine deep enough to invite comparison with the Grand Canyon; the other is whitewater rafting along the river.

But it's been raining non-stop for days and the water level is 2ft higher than usual.

'So would you prefer to take the hike?' the guide enquires, taking my years into account.

I look at a group of teenagers among our party, who are eager to go rafting.

'I'm with them,' I hear myself say. When we arrive at the fast-flowing river, the head guide equips us with paddles, helmets and lifejackets. 'If you fall in the water, don't try to swim,' he advises. 'Just lie on your back and float, feet-first, downstream until we can get you out.' . . . full article

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See Morocco save the world

My wife Lynne and I were heading for Marrakech, preparing to touch down near the Arab city in the land of the Sahara Desert, the High Atlas Mountains, the Atlantic Ocean, the Straits of Gibraltar, the tagine and the preserved lemon.

Morocco. A land whose biggest port, Casablanca, is most closely associated in the eyes of the world with Humphrey Bogart; where there's a monarch, Mohammed VI, who doesn't have to defer to parliament if he doesn't want to and who claims to be descended from the Prophet of Islam himself.

Much of my time travelling has been work-related. I've been around the world as a movie actor and, I have to say, there's no better way to travel. . . full article

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