Ferry nice
Brittany Ferries is to launch a fast, luxury "cruise-ferry" between Portsmouth and Santander, northern Spain, next April. The four-year-old Port Aven will leave dock every Monday and take 24 hours to reach Spain, eight hours less than the current service from Plymouth, which will continue to run twice a week.
brittanyferries.co.uk. Fares and timetable available from beginning of August.
Way hay
Try asking farmers in Somerset about their lives or offer to help harvest their crops of wheat and potato and you might get a few funny looks, but in the foothills of the Himalayas it's welcomed as part of operator Village Ways' new responsible tourism project. From October, tourists will be able to visit the remote Saryu Valley in the upper Kumaon and meet the locals, who profit from the trip.
01223 750 049, villageways.com. A 10-night trip costs from £769pp, including overnight rail from Delhi.
A return, I presume?
Watch game as the sun sets and dine in a vintage lounge car on the Royal Livingstone Express, a new five-hour circular rail journey from Livingstone, on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls, to the Mosi-Oa-Tunya national park.
Rainbow Tours (020-7226 1004, rainbowtours.co.uk). £78pp including six-course dinner and drinks.