One-bag rule binned

The one-item hand luggage limit on airlines – introduced in August 2006 – will be lifted in January.

The government said that from 7 January, airports can seek permission for passengers to take more than a single bag each onto flights. Limits on liquids and weight will remain the same.

"I hope to see rapid progress across the whole country with all airports submitting plans over the next few months,” said transport secretary Ruth Kelly in November.

"Some may need to enforce baggage restrictions to ensure that acceptable security standards are maintained. Equally, some airlines may choose to keep bag restrictions for their own operational reasons,” she said.

The government wants to tighten security in other ways; proposed anti-terrorism measures include barriers against car bomb attacks at airport terminals and the busiest ports and stations across the country.

Travellers will also have to provide more information – such as personal details and destination addresses – when they buy airline tickets. Reports suggest this might lead to higher fares because travel companies face paying around £20 million per year to compile the data. It's hoped that this £1.2 billion ‘e-borders’ programme will be fully operational by 2014.

Eurostar rises

A week after the Queen opened the restored £800 million St Pancras terminal at Kings Cross in November, the first high-speed Eurostar service zipped to Paris at up to 186mph, taking little more than two hours and shaving 20 minutes off the old journey time.

The trip to Brussels is 25 minutes quicker than it was from Waterloo, and when all the new lines currently under construction in Europe are finished, passengers from St Pancras will have access to nearly 4,000 miles of high-speed rail. By 2010, London to Barcelona will take six hours.

The Queen said the quicker trains would make a real difference to people’s lives. “The remarkable re-birth of this great and gleaming station means that people across the whole of Britain, not just the south east, are suddenly quite a bit closer to Europe,” she said.

Eurostar has struck deals with Britain’s train operators, including East Midlands Trains, First Capital Connect, GNER and Virgin Trains, so passengers can buy tickets to Paris, Brussels, Lille and dozens of connecting destinations across France from 68 stations across the UK.

David Mapp, of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said: “The new through fares will make it far easier for people to buy tickets for travel to the continent.”

The first train to Paris was called ‘Tread Lightly’ because of Eurostar’s commitment to lightening its services’ carbon footprint – the company has set a target of reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by 25 per cent per passenger journey by 2012.

Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown said: “Today marks a new dawn for short-haul travel in Europe. “We will carry passengers with greater speed, ease and reliability than ever before, and our travellers will have the extra reassurance of knowing that they are making far less environmental impact compared with flying,” said Mr Brown.

However, not everyone is happy as the withdrawal of Eurostar services from Waterloo means that for many travellers in the South and South West, journey times to the continent have increased, as they now have to cross London by tube to reach St Pancras. And the same disgruntled travellers are wondering why no-one bothered to introduce through fares from regional stations during the 13 years that services ran from Waterloo.

Continental choice

Train lines through the channel tunnel will be opened up to competition in 2010, and several rail operators are expected to begin cross-channel services to rival Eurostar – which could drive down prices.

“You will see the same level of competition that you see at Heathrow today,” said Paul Charles, former head of communications for Eurostar and now director of communications for Virgin Atlantic.

Virgin Rail and German operator Deutsche Bahn will be among those to introduce services – the latter has promised high-speed trains linking Cologne to London in under four hours.

Airlines are looking at ways to link with rail services to provide a better travel network for passengers.

Art takes wing

Madrid’s Prado museum is showing 400 paintings which have never before been on public display following a multimillion-euro refurbishment of the building.

The five year facelift meant knocking down the 15th century cloister of an adjoining church to make way for the new wing – but it has been rebuilt inside the museum.

¡Hola Gwyneth!

Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow has turned to travel presenting, having started filming a 13-part American television series on the country she “fell in love” with – Spain.

Called Spain…On The Road Again, the programmes will be about the country’s food and culture. Paltrow is travelling for up to four months with three companions, including New York Times food critic Marc Bittman.

“I don’t know what we are going to do, but it is going to be fun,” said Paltrow at a press launch in Madrid – though she did say she was keen to tuck into Spain’s rice and fish dishes.

The star of films such as Shakespeare in Love speaks fluent Spanish, having lived with a family in Toledo, central Spain, as a teenage student.

Married to singer Chris Martin of British band Coldplay, Paltrow lives much of the time in the UK and admitted in a 2006 interview with a Portuguese newspaper that she loves Europe’s “much older culture”.

“I always say that in America, people live to work and in Europe, people work to live,” she said.

The series will be screened on the PBS network in the US next autumn, and deals to show it elsewhere are being negotiated.

Borne from the USA

Apparently holidaymakers returning from the States shouldn’t worry too much about exceeding duty-free purchase limits, because customs officers say they probably won’t be found out.

“These days, very few people bother declaring goods and, frankly, you’ve got to be highly unlucky to get caught,” said a senior inspector at a London airport.

An HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) official said: “The risk of death or injury from imported heroin or cocaine is far more important than a few pairs of designer jeans, and we don’t have the resources to stop every passenger on every flight arriving from the USA.”

By law, travellers can only bring back £145 of goods from outside the EU without paying VAT at 17.5 per cent and duty at rates ranging from two to 15 per cent.

The collapse of the dollar means you can now double your money changing pounds to dollars (tourist rates at time of writing were $2.05 to the pound). Shopping Stateside makes for big savings, and that limit is easily exceeded.

However, even paying the import taxes you can still save – a pair of Rock & Republic designer jeans which cost £262 in Selfridges in Manchester cost £92 in Miami’s Neiman Marcus store, rising to just £121 after duty and VAT.

And if you are caught with piles of pressies? The HMRC official said people are usually asked simply to pay the taxes owed.

High school hit for Florida

Disney’s hit television film High School Musical will be turned into a live show at its famous Florida resort in 2008.

High School Musical 2: School’s Out is inspired by the original Disney Channel film, whose soundtrack was the best-selling album in America in 2006.

The cast in the Disney World stage show will invite guests to sing and dance with them to the hit tunes, which include ‘We’re all in this together’ and ‘Bop to the top’.

Other added attractions include Toy Story Mania, a 3D ‘ride-through’ videogame based on the hugely popular Pixar animated films about a group of talking toys (Disney acquired Pixar in a £4 billion deal in 2006). Visitors will board vehicles and shoot virtual darts and eggs at targets.

Boys – and probably dads – will be keen to impress at the Jedi Training Academy, created with Lucasfilm, the company behind Star Wars.

And those hooked on the Pirates of the Caribbean blockbusters will be able to learn and test their sea dog skills in ‘A Pirate’s Life for Me’.

Movement of the people

Record numbers of people are leaving Britain to live abroad, according to the Office of National Statistics.

The number reached 400,000 last year – an increase of 41,000 on 2005 – and of those, 207,000 were British citizens. The rest were non-British but had been in the UK for more than a year.

Most Brits went to Australia, New Zealand, France, Spain and the USA.

I’d buy that for a dollar

Fancy earning cash from your holiday snaps? Upload them onto website fotolia.com and you can get from $1-$10 – around 50p to £5 – whenever one of your pictures is bought.

Amateurs make up more than half of the 50,000 photographers providing pics for this online stock photo library. To get yours accepted you must create an account and do a short tutorial on copyright issues (photos mustn’t feature logos or advertising is the main tip).

Then you upload as many digital images as you like, and the site’s editors approve usable ones. A price will be put on your photos depending on quality and size – from 50p for low-resolution shots suitable for internet use, up to £2.50 for larger images fit for print purposes.

The more snaps you sell, the higher your photographer ‘rank’ goes, until finally you can set your own prices for pictures. The site pays you via PayPal or Moneybookers once you’ve sold £5 worth.

Travel is one of the most popular themes on the site – launched in November 2005 – along with business and ‘lifestyle’. Sister sites in the US, Brazil, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy mean a big market for your photos.

Apparently, top-selling Fotolia photographers get between £6 and £18 per accepted image per year, and earn up to £3,000 a month. It could be a nice little earner if you’ve got an eye for it!

Regional rush

More holidaymakers are making use of Britain’s regional airports and avoiding the big London hubs, says a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) study.

Passenger numbers at smaller airports have grown seven per cent every year since 2000, while the ‘big three’ London airports, Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, have averaged three per cent. Annual passengers at the regionals now exceed 100 million, triple the 1990 total.

“Regional airports have put themselves firmly on the map as gateways for travel,” said Harry Bush, of the CAA.