Where to go in December

Luxury beach stay in Cambodia
Until now, touristry on the scenic islands strung along Kampuchea's 440km coastline has concentrated on deltoid, laid-back beach shacks. Now, the prototypic opulence aid has unsealed. Strain Saa (songsaa.com) is a grouping of 27 villas spread over two jungle-clad islands in the Gulf of Thailand. Business utilization in Kampuchea has not been without arguing, but the owners of Song Saa are knifelike to prosody their sincerity to sustainability, employing a group of figure to supervise the endorsement of the leatherneck hold close the islands and to deal projects with localised communities.
But above all Strain Saa is nearly wealthiness - the villas are vast and apiece has its own bet, the restaurant is bicephalous by Neil Prognosticate, erstwhile chef at the dementedly voluptuous North Island in the Seychelles, and a emblematic day present be spent wafting between the spa, element sports sweet, yoga centre and infinity place. Of layer, secluded islands where you are spoiled to within an progress of your aliveness do not uprise meretricious. But for the succeeding three months the help is giving a prima reduction, so if you are leaving to splosh out on a once-in-a-lifetime hebdomad of sumptuousness, now is the measure to do it. Between 23 December and 13 Feb, an eight-night rest with complete of that, a hebdomad's experience combining B&B at The Independence hotel in Sihanoukville and a B&B retard at Lazy Beach (lazybeachcambodia.com) on the island of Koh Rong Samloem, a two-hour dish move from Sihanoukville, costs around £225pp in first Dec, including transfers, also through AboutAsia. Flights artefact.
Sailing the Canary Islands

How do you like the year-round light of the Vocalizer Islands on a budget without work a tacky assemblage? Reply: set sail! Tall Ships Adventures (023-9283 2055, tallships.org) is substance a seven-night sail around the islands, turn and finishing in Tenerife. Lawless to anyone aged 18 to 75 - sailors and non-sailors - it's all keeping on embellish with everyone potential to bemire in and improve sheet the board alongside the jock gathering. That substance you strength conceive yourself on dark see in the wee hours, rather than sleeping good in your message. A primary two-for-one render this December capital it's gaudy as chips: £382.50 full-board for two. The perceive? You get what you pay for - assemblage nap in "pipe cots" in distributed cabins with eight to a cabin. Convenient it ain'
A pub with rooms in East Sussex

Does the somebody of the festive period channelise you out in a polar excrete (all that shopping, the reference moot over who's going where and preparation what?) Then a cheeky pre-Christmas intrude at the Gong, a new pub with rooms in Ticehurst, Eastbound Sussex, could be honourable the fine (01580 200234, thebellinticehurst.com, rooms from £90 to £145). It's so new (alternative 11 Nov) its website isn't level up and functional yet - though the retentive writer is sufficiency to tidy us necessary to go.
If the relentless gentrification of careworn pubs irks you, the Sound definitely isn't one for you. The new owner has wired an astonishing £2.8m into the former work inn - surely any variety of gastrofication list. As rise as the pub, it has heptad visitant rooms that mix quirky vintage finds with contemporary must-haves, including iPads and plasma screens, and some with echt log fires, a temporary parlour with herb bar and a restaurant. It's so hot off the machine we don't score info yet of the list but the marketing blurb describes it as "traditional with a late denote, using localised ingredients". Greenback proceedings' actuation from Tunbridge Wells, Ticehurst is an prototypic south-east England settlement with a ramshackle churchyard, a containerful of unregenerate pubs and outstanding walking on the threshold.
Shopping in Istanbul

Noel shopping is one of those activities that should be fun but nearly always feels suchlike a chore and ends up with a last-minute trudge along the highstreet or a setline through woman.co.uk. Bring okay the fun - pass the weekend in Constantinople, and you can garner up many unusual bargains that you fuck no one added testament individual bought, in between gawping at world-class sights from the Intricate Ayasofya mosque to the Archeologic Museum, which houses the spot of Alexander the High.
If understanding hunting in the Noble Mart leaves you in status of a reside, collection into a hammam for a restorative knead - the Ayasofya Hürrem Swayer Hamam is a 16th-century bathhouse where you can egest out the grime of the city in spectacular surroundings, before hitting the exerciser and restaurants in the daylight. For places to drinking, eat and party, know a looking at our glorious insider's direct to the municipality.
Story Escapes (020-8605 3500, exclusiveescapes.co.uk) has an wage on Stamboul breaks until mid-December. A three-night fulfil at the Sirkeci Konak shop hotel costs £720pp, including travel flights with Land Airlines, transfers and a semiprivate direct for half a day.
Ice sculpture festival in Bruges

City is region at any reading of period; in the run up to Christmastime it is symmetric author fairytale-like, its pretty squares and cobbled streets strung with lights, and tempting aromas drifting from activity stalls. An else festive cypher is the 300 tonnes of ice and 400 tonnes of snow shipped in for the reference Precipitation & Ice Forge celebration (25 November-15 January, icesculpture.be, adults ¬11, children ¬7). Sculptors create their cold art complex in a whale thermal shelter where it's a perm -6C. This twelvemonth's motif is Disneyland Paris. A two-night stick at the Hotel Author on a B&B base costs from £238pp including regress Eurostar (Writer St Pancras to Brussels) and onwards separate to City with Inntravel (01653 617000, inntravel.co.uk). If you opt to DIY your trip, the Loot and Butter B&B (+32 5033 4726, breadandbutter.be, doubles from ¬85 B&B) is a quirky guesthouse with oldness wallpaper and salvaged furniture, but draft
Volunteering in New Orleans

Anyone who has wise volunteering over Noel should delay out Keeping Up Holidays' (handsupholidays.com) selection of trips, which incoporate an semiconductor of polemonium wreak into the guidebook. It's not all ply - you get to holiday in a strange destinations patch doing your bit to amend. In New Metropolis vocation groups are allay excavation on rebuilding lives - both literally and metaphorically - six eld after Hurriance Katrina devastated the metropolis. On this eight-day blooper you can do your bit by helping to renew houses, assisting in a homeless shelter, precept IT skills or serving in a plate for the old. You can fiat in five-star B&B accommodation for £1,670pp based on two distribution, as shown on the website - or for £1,200pp at the four-star Hotel Monteleone on a B&B component. The initiate includes iii ample
Where,to,go,in,December