THEY say you need patience to fish. And it turns out they’re right. Half an hour into my Antiguan deep-sea fishing trip and I’m considering throwing in the towel. We’re about three miles off the coast of Curtain Bluff, on the south coast of the Caribbean island, dragging five baited lines behind us, and nothing has happening. Not even a nibble.

I’m not quite sure how a copy of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band ended up in my CD collection, but it seemed like the perfect soundtrack for the drive to the Four Seasons Hotel in St Fillans on the banks of Loch Earn.

Bored out of my mind en route from Paris to Lima, I was flicking through Air France’s film library and stumbled upon Prometheus.

A CHORUS line of 32 stunning girls, high-kicking on a vast Berlin stage, prove to me that the city’s 1920s theatrical traditions are still alive and blooming.

A MAJOR golf tourism initiative, launched two years ago to bring more golfers to the North east of Scotland - home to the Trump golf resort - is to be expanded to meet the demand from visitors and operators.

TOURISM chiefs today urged the people of Scotland to get behind a campaign to have Dunnottar Castle in Aberdeenshire, which inspired Princess Merida’s family home in Disney-Pixar’s Brave, named as the “8th Wonder of the World.”

ALTHOUGH the most sparsely populated country in Europe, with roughly 320,000 citizens to its 103,000km2, Iceland is packed with action.

MIRAMAR’S direct translation is ‘good view’ and you most certainly won’t be disappointed in that respect at Hotel Miramar.

What entices you to visit an area? Local produce, nature and wildlife, history or fun visitor attractions? If any of these are on your tick list, consider a trip to Dumfries and Galloway. Nature and wildlife abounds.

Our train is a little delayed, we’re told. I hear a squeal of delight from the woman in the compartment next to mine. No groans, no eye-rolling, no phoning home to have dinner put on the back burner.

Holidays are mostly about the getting there when you’re six years old. Which parent hasn’t heard the words: “Are we there yet?” 30 minutes into a journey.

ANGELS Share, Edinburgh’s newest boutique hotel, is giving away the chance to win a night’s stay and dinner for two exclusively to Scotsman readers.

When we decide that we need to escape city life, thankfully we don’t have to travel far before we find the scenery that provides the relaxation we crave. Perth has always been on the periphery of our radar, a big player on road signs, but never the destination.

I’am feeling a strong sense of deja vu as our boat meanders through reed beds in Turkey’s Dalyan Çayı River.

LIGHTNING bolts light up the night sky over Chrysochou Bay just before an enormous boom cracks what feels like right above our heads.

I WAS beginning to get the feeling I was the only person around who hadn’t been to Melfort House B&B.

SHOULD we worry overly much that Edinburgh has slipped out of a top ten ranking of UK cities to visit? Probably not.

New Zealand offers an insight into the films of the Tolkien classics

Come see the new Waldorf Astoria in Berlin, the invitation read. How new? I asked, stepping into the soaring lobby one sunny March morning. Oh, we opened last week. You’d never know it.

The word “holiday” has certain implications: a beach, a blue sea, a hammock, rum-based cocktails with umbrellas in… And a sense of doing very little for a week or two.