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SimplyHireACar Sponsored Student Expedition Conquers Quilotoa Crater
On the 5th July the Herschel Grammar School 2010 World Challenge Team landed in Quito, Ecuador.
Since then the 11 students (aged 15 to 18) and 3 Adults have reached the halfway mark of their Expedition exploring the wonders of this amazing country.

SimplyHireACar Sponsors Students on World Challenge Expedition to Ecuador
After two years of fundraising, planning, and some last minute sponsorship from SimplyHireACar.co.uk, a group of students from Herschel Grammar School plus 3 adults departed Monday 6th July 2010 on their month long expedition to Ecuador.

Travel news articles are provided from TimesOnline.co.uk...

Six of world's best wild-water swims
Mexico Cant do cold water? Then the Sea of Cortes should tick your boxes; the average temperature in the briny here is 25C . You will be based on Espiritu Santo island in Baja California, and the swimming during the week-long trip (about 6km each day) is along beaches and through coves and bays where you may be an object of curiosity for inquisitive sea lions.

Wild-water swimming in Turkey
Despite living two centuries apart, I feel that I share a lot with Lord Byron  18th-century poet, lover, dandy, bon viveur, icon.

Times Walks: Slieve Gullion, Co Armagh
Ever smelt pine needles properly? inquired my companion, the walker and naturalist Ron Murray, as we strolled the Forest Drive along the southern flank of Slieve Gullion. Crush em like this between your finger and thumb.

20 best seaside villas in Europe
1 Eco Fishermans Cottage, Lanzarote, Spain This solar-powered fishermans cottage on the seafront in the pretty fishing village of Arrieta, northeast Lanzarote, is a stones throw from a sandy cove. It sleeps two adults and two children, and has been lovingly converted: wood furniture, cream throws, plants and paintings, a fully fitted kitchen, two bathrooms and lounge opening out on to the promenade. The balcony has superb sea views and the shaded courtyard is perfect for alfresco dining. There are good coastal walking and cycling trails from the doorstep, and the mountain village of Haria is just a short drive away.

If its good enough for Keats...
Iquestion if there be a room in England which commands a view of mountains and lakes and woods superior to that in which I am now writing. If you read that in a holiday-home companys blurb, you might dismiss it as a touch flowery. But when you learnt that the copywriter was a Mr Coleridge, youd sit up and take notice. You might even want to stay there. And you can.

20 great chef-owned hotels
ENGLAND

Where Raymond Blanc eats on holiday
I have always said that food is the best healer. So when I smashed my leg in five places by falling down my stairs in March, I knew that I needed to find an hotel with a great restaurant where I could convalesce. Naturally, I thought that France would be the best antidote to melancholy and the Provençal spring sun the best provider of vitamin D.

The forgotten islands off Swedens coast
Karin Holmstrom lives at the ends of the earth, but its easy enough to pay her a visit. Just give some kroner to a boatman in the village of Fjällbacka on the west coast of Sweden and hell run you 12 miles (20km) out to sea to a place where water and sky are broken by low, bare rocks that seem to inhabit the middle of nowhere. On one of these stark, treeless outposts, waiting to greet you at a little wooden jetty, is Karin.

20 wild days out in the UK countryside
Pony express, Dartmoor, Devon Explore 400 sq miles of moorland on horseback  children even get to ride the famous Dartmoor ponies. Trot past rocky outcrops, gorse and heather, and splash through streams. dartmoorstables.com, 01364 621281

The worlds 20 best hotel pools
1 Perivolas, Santorini, Greece

Travel by train though the Lake District
The train breezes down the Cumbrian coast, on one of Britains most absorbing  and least known  rail journeys. The morning mists are lifting, the couple opposite are sharing their first Polos of the day and Im studying a chart showing how many passengers use the two dozen stations along the line, which runs from Carlisle to Barrow-in-Furness.

Kilimanjaro: my nightmare climb
I had never thought about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro until I learnt of its statistics. Of the 25,000 climbers who attempt it each year, 40 per cent dont make it to the top and a handful dont make it down at all. A ghoulish curiosity set in. Would I be a winner or a loser? What price that one moment of looking down on the world?

The 40 best British beaches
Beaches for swimmers

Q&A: your options during BA strikes
When are the strikes?

An insiders guide to the World Cup cities
Cape Town

A guide to Britains 20 wildest walks
The week before last I walked the sea walls of Canvey Island. No one would call this shore of the lower Thames conventionally wild  there were fuel tankers in the channel and oil refinery flames in the sky. But there were also skylarks singing, shelduck feeding on the mudflats and reed buntings nesting along the ditches. The wild and the workaday were co-existing very nicely on the RSPBs brand new West Canvey Marsh Reserve.

30 chic hotels in budget flight destinations
1 Château de Bagnols near Lyons, France

Read the books and seen the films? Now visit Harry Potters world
Professor Dumbledore is speaking to me in his study, the Hogwarts headmasters holographic projection so real that I feel I can touch it. The corridors of the school for wizards are lined with talking portraits, the final chamber filled with floating candles, and Harry Potter himself appears, urging me to follow him on a magical journey.

BA strike starts on Monday on after court strikes down injunction
Tens of thousands of British Airways passengers face flight cancellations over the Whitsun Bank Holiday and school half-term after the Court of Appeal overturned an injunction that was blocking a strike yesterday.

The dusk til dawn guide to New York
18.00 While everyone naps before dinner, youd be wise to chalk up some crowd-magnets: on a Saturday, the Guggenheim is open until 7.45pm (guggenheim.org ); while on a Saturday, the MOMA closes at 8pm (moma.org). Or begin queuing now to ascend the Empire State Building this is about as short as the line gets; alternatively, the last lift is at 1.15am (esbnyc.com).

BA granted injunction to stop cabin crew strikes
British Airways has been granted an injunction to stop the Unite union from carrying out cabin crew strikes that had been due to start at midnight tonight.

No let up in travel misery as BA strike looms
Restrictions to UK airspace were mostly lifted this morning as a change in wind direction pushed the volcanic plume further north but passengers were still delayed as airports struggled to deal with the backlog from earlier closures.

20 great family getaways in Europe
1 Villa Pia, Lippiano, Umbria, Italy

Its spewing ash, but Iceland is very cool
Even before it became a naughty troll kicking out financial and geological mayhem from the top of the world, I had longed to visit Iceland. It was that intriguing brew of age-old and hip ultra-new, which had once attracted the singer Damon Albarn and writer Dave Eggers to live three. I love quirky countries that have somehow eluded the dull homogeny of globalisation: Iceland produced the first lesbian head of state; has one in four citizens who believes in elves; and Björk, who attended the Oscars dressed as a swan.

The waves are hot in Costa Rica
I was tired. The surf was big  between 6ft and 8ft  and Id been in the water for four hours. My son, Harry, had called time on this, our final days surfing in Costa Rica. I watched him ride a wave smoothly to the shore, and envied him as he stood on the beach of Playa Grande, palm trees waving gently behind him and the setting sun warming his seaward gaze.