Eye On Travel: New Year, New Places. What are you Whereing in 2017?

So that’s that then. Out with the old, in with the new. The Year of the Rooster is with us - a bird that is associated with waking you up in the morning, perching in a lofty position to view all around it or being the contents of a cardboard bucket - depending on your take.

So what is new in the world of travel to explore this year? Not too much of the World is undiscovered any more - and you will not find much of it in a two week holiday but there are new ways of getting to places you have either been to before or have been meaning to see. So here are a few new ways of getting there for 2017.

St Anton: The Moose is on fire

With snow finally arriving in the European Alps, one of the best resort areas has just become much better. St Anton has always been linked to Lech and Zürs if you can squeeze on to the (payable) ski bus but this year, FOUR new linking gondolas have sprung up to join the dots including the game changing Flexenbahn.

This is now the largest lift linked area in Austria allowing access to the wonderful cruising runs of the Arlberg region including recently added Warth, which has one of the best snow records in Europe before heading back to the Moosewirt for the surreal world of DJ Gerhard.

GET THERE: St Anton makes a great short break destination as well as a traditional week long package holiday. Fly to Innsbruck or Zürich and expect to leave exhausted.

Torres del Paine: Red hot Chile Trekkers

Chile (the country, not the weather) gets its first non stop flights from the UK this year with British Airways flying its shiny new Dreamliners on its longest route at 14 and 40minutes. This Santiago way may be long but its definitely worthwhile.

Leave the uninspiring capital city for the dry Atacama desert or head to the south and the incredible wilderness of Torres del Paine park and remote Punta Arenas. Transport links are good and you can always pop over to Argentina for a decent steak.

GET THERE: British Airways flies direct from Heathrow to Santiago four times per week. Daily connections are available via Madrid. Use efficient domestic flights with LATAM.

Marvellous: I like big boats

As the demand for cruising holidays takes off, well sails to be precise, the necessity to innovate manifests itself in the new ships launched during a year. This year there are a number of smaller vessels including one for National Geographic designed at reaching ever more remote destinations.

There is always a statement ship however and this year’s new largest capacity build for 4,500 people (that’s about 9 A380s covering an area the size of Wales, probably) is MSC’s Meraviglia, modestly named Marvellous, which will be filling up the Mediterranean this summer.

GET THERE: Meraviglia will be making its debut this summer in the Western Mediterranean based in Italy before heading to the Caribbean next winter.

Eurostar: Last train to ‘Dam Centraal

It’s over 20 years since the Eurostar trains showed us that trains can be good with a robust system for opening and closing the doors (Southern Rail take note). So it is perhaps surprising that the original trains to Paris and Brussels are still the only daily routes.

But this will change in December when Amsterdam joins the club. Although longer than the flight time, this is city centre to city centre travel. Amsterdam is a great year round city with something for just about everybody!

GET THERE: Direct trains from St Pancras to Amsterdam will start in ‘late 2017’ and take around 3h50m although the return journey will require disembarkation for a passport check in Lille.

***