· The airport handles more international passengers than any other airport in the world and offers flights to many international destinations including 33 flights to Paris and 23 flights to New York each day.

· The most popular country for flights from Heathrow is the United States of America.

· The busiest routes are New York, Paris, Amsterdam and Dublin.

· The busiest day at Heathrow recorded this year was Sunday 29 July 2001 when 213,000 passengers passed through the airport.

· The airport covers approximately 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres).

www.baa.co.uk

OK, it's silly season! Earlier in the year, we saw Prince Charles (but not Camilla!) spend a night in a £25-a-night B&B called Yew Tree Farm, an 18th century farmhouse in the Lake District village of Rosthwaite in Borrowdale. Pre-divorce, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise also used to stay in the Lake District, at Samling, a rambling Lakeland estate of stone cottages dotted across a fell overlooking Lake Windermere.

Michael Winner stays at Sandy Lane, Barbados. Kylie is known to holiday in Ibiza, staying at a £10,000 a week three-bed art deco house on top of a mountain, according to celebrity travel agent Earth. Julien MacDonald of Givenchy fame is alleged to prefer the Puri Ganesha villas on the beach at Pemuteran, a fishing village in the relatively undiscovered north-west of Bali, costing around £300 a night. Talking of fashion designers, Jean Paul Gaultier can be found at Dar Zellije, a four-suite riad said to have no frills other than its 17th century architecture where not all the bathrooms are en suite.

And last but not least, lets think about Brighton, that genteel (?), happening place and erstwhile Victorian resort on the UK's southern shore. Not only does Norman Cook, AKA Fat Boy Slim hold rather dubious free concerts on the beach, but Liam Gallagher was spotted staying on the seafront at Blanche House, described as a themed B&B costing around £100 a night.

If you are thinking of going to Santiago or Tahiti, did you know, you could take a flight to Easter Island? It's included in the famous Oneworld Explorer air pass. In addition, if you do plan a trip to Easter Island, David Stanley's piece on Easter Island is a good source of information to help you plan your trip. David's notes on Easter Island are taken from the Moon Handbook on the South Pacific.

Visit southpacific.org for full information on how to get there, what there is to see, how to get around, a brief history and other activities such as surfing and diving. David Stanley has earned his living from guidebook writing since 1979, producing guides to the South Pacific, Micronesia, Alaska-Yukon, Eastern Europe, and Cuba. His latest book, Lonely Planet Canada's Maritime Provinces, was released in July.

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You may want to reschedule your visit to Madagascar: according to news sources, an outbreak of flu has killed at least 374 people with another 5,000 and more infected. Health experts from the WHO are due to arrive to investigate the cause. The outbreaks are mostly blamed on poverty and have occurred in the southern highlands, Fianarantsoa and in the western port of Tulear, a place used by travellers to visit the national parks close by.

Add this to the last 7 months of civil unrest, this does not make Madagascar a very attractive place to visit – which is a great shame, as the Beetle can attest it is a fabulously interesting country, hard to get around, but worth the effort, to see the different kinds of forests, the lemurs, practice speaking French, the old French style of architecture and boulevards etc. The diving is not bad, either!

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Disruption to circadian rhythms caused by crossing time zones, which can result in broken sleep, with the sufferer waking during the night and then wanting to fall asleep during the day. The number of days this dysrhythmia lasts has been observed to be about equal to the number of time zones crossed. A study by Air New Zealand states that passengers crossing 12 times zones on a 26-hour flight require ten days to re-establish a normal sleep pattern (1).

The length of the flight is not the critical issue. The most important single factor is how many time zones you cross. People can suffer jet lag just crossing the United States (three hours' time change) but would be much less affected by a north-south flight of the same duration. The number of intermediate stops is also a factor, as each stop is accompanied by changes in cabin pressure. Lastly is your pre flight condition. If you are not fit, rested and healthy you will probably suffer more jet lag than others on the same flight.

Overlooking the River Thames, Tate Britain was originally founded through the philanthropy of the sugar magnate Sir Henry Tate. The Tate legacy now encompasses three other galleries around the UK, including Tate Modern in London. Dedicated to showcasing Britain's artistic talent, Tate Britain is home to the greatest collection of British art from 1500 to the present day. Since it opened in 1897, the collection has expanded to include works from Blake, Rossetti, Spencer and Stubbs. Visitors will be treated to a visual feast in the Turner gallery, discover the ever-popular The Kiss by Rodin and be mesmerized by the visionary work of William Blake. The works have recently been re-arranged according to six core themes ranging from Literature and Fantasy to Public and Private. As a result, historic and modern paintings now hang together.

Opening hours: 10:00-17:50, closed 24-26 Dec.
Tube: Pimlico or Vauxhall. Enquiries: 020 7887 8000 Entrance: FREE except for some special ex

hibitions.

A big thank you to Moon Handbooks who have donated this months' huge and highly informative Moon handbook on the South Pacific, written by David Stanley as above. See www.moon.com for more details.

The winner of last month's Moon Handbook on Guatemala is Mike Shawcross.