The British Museum, one of the greatest museums in the world, tops the visitor charts.  Founded in 1753, it is also the oldest museum in the world and its contents catalogue over two million years of world history and culture.  With over 94 galleries and thousands of artefacts, the British Museum will have something for everyone!  The most famous exhibits include the Elgin Marbles – sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens, Egyptian mummies and the Rosetta Stone.  The Reading Room was recently incorporated into the Great Court (a huge covered courtyard) has witnessed the likes of Karl Marx, Mahatma Ghandi and George Bernard Shaw working there.  Admission is free and there are lots of events and special exhibitions taking place throughout the year.

The British Museum opens daily 10:00-17:30 Sat-Wed, 10:00-20:30 Thurs-Fri (selected galleries).  The Great Court opens 09:00-18:00 Mon-Wed, 09:00-23:00 Thurs, Fri and 09:00-18:00 Sat and Sun, closed 24-26 Dec and 1 Jan. Tube: Tottenham Court Road, Holborn or Russell Square. Enquiries: 020 7323 8299

Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett has reached Australia and finally succeeded on his 6th attempt in becoming the first solo balloonist to circumnavigate the globe, completed after covering nearly 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometres) around the southern hemisphere.  It took 13 days in the air and his silvery balloon, often travelled along at speeds up to 200 mph (322 km/h), at an altitude more familiar to jetliners.

Under 30? A member of Globetrotters Club? Interested in a £1,000 travel award?

Know someone who is? We have £1,000 to award each year for five years for the best submitted independent travel plan. Interested?

Then see our legacy page on our Website, where you can apply with your plans for a totally independent travel trip and we'll take a look at it. Get those plans in!!

A disease which has devastated one type of Caribbean coral, Elkhorn coral, has been traced back to bacteria found in human faeces. On some reefs, 95% of Elkhorn corals, which used to be the commonest coral in the Caribbean, have been wiped out by the condition, called white pox that shows itself as white spots on the coral, which spread and kill the coral, destroying the living tissue. On average, the disease spreads at a rate of 2.5 square centimetres of coral a day.

The problem is particularly bad in the Florida Keys, where human waste is treated in septic fields rather than extensively treated to kill bacteria.  It is thought to be the first time that a human gut bacterium has been linked to coral disease.

Be careful dancing in Iran: an Iranian dancer who left Iran 22 years ago and has been living in Los Angeles has just been given a 10-year suspended prison sentence in Iran on charges of corrupting the nation's youth.  Mohammed Khordadian had been making a living giving lessons in Iranian traditional dance and performing for the large Iranian community in California. 

He returned to Iran after learning that his mother had died and spent a couple of months visiting relatives and friends but was arrested at the airport when he tried to leave.  Some of his performances were beamed into Iran by TV stations run by Iranian exiles and his videos also found their way onto the domestic Iranian market.  After several months in jail he has finally been released, following sentence by a Tehran court.  In addition to the suspended jail sentence, he was banned from leaving the country for 10 years, banned from attending weddings for three years, except for those of close relations, and banned from giving dance lessons ever again. 

Although many Iranians dance at private parties, especially weddings, the ruling clerical establishment frowns on such behaviour, especially when it involves the mingling of the sexes. For unmarried people, even to appear in public together is a punishable offence, though it is only sporadically enforced, although there are reports of alarm from young people in Tehran who have noticed the recent appearance on the streets of a tough new police unit, equipped with smart black four-wheeled drive vehicles.

The FCO has just developed a web page of advice for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender traveller.  It starts by saying: “Attitudes towards gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender travellers around the world can be very different to those in the UK. However, despite potential extra hassles, it is possible to have a very positive and enjoyable travelling experience.  One thing's for sure: the better prepared you are, the fewer problems you are likely to have. We hope the following tips will help you.”

The page then goes on to give some sensible and quite detailed advice on a range of advice about how to avoid problems, down to how to obtain a new passport with a new post operative trans-gender identity.  Visit: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender

The US House voted last night to lift the ban on US citizens travelling to communist Cuba, stunning hard-liners and defying a plea by the Bush administration to retain harsh, 40-year-old sanctions against a nation it sees as a terrorist state.  In an unexpectedly lopsided and bipartisan 262-167 vote, the House approved an amendment by Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, to prohibit funds from being used to enforce the travel ban, effectively lifting it.

Since the amendment was attached to a Treasury Department and Postal Service appropriations bill, it had to pertain to spending to be considered in order.

“Americans can travel to North Korea and Iran, two-thirds of the axis of evil, but not to Cuba,” said Representative William Delahunt, Democrat of Quincy, MA. “That makes no sense, I would suggest.”

One of the oldest indigenous peoples, the Inuit, have turned to one of the most modern forms of communication to tell the world about their culture.

The Inuit are a founding people of Canada. Inuit hunters and their families started crossing the 320-kilometres-wide (200 miles) Bering Land Bridge from Siberia perhaps 30,000 years ago, then wandered slowly across the Polar north, reaching Greenland 50 centuries ago.

The Inuit were an entirely nomadic, hunting people until about 50 years ago, when the central government began an effort to bring them into mainstream Canadian life.  They now live across the Arctic reaches of northern Canada, where they are struggling to decrease high rates of alcoholism, suicide, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

They have launched a website detailing their 5,000-year-old history, cataloguing their origins, when they first came into contact with white explorers and their struggle for land rights. Part of the reason for setting up the website was to tell the story of the Inuit in their own words, as until now, most of the research on Inuit culture and history has been done by others. http://www.tapirisat.ca/