I am in Broken Hill, New South Wales: the Silver City. Besides being a classic Australian mining town, it has been the location for some cult movies – including Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The central set for the music was the marvellous Palace Hotel, whose co-owner is today’s guest. Esther La Rovere has been telling me what makes Broken Hill so special.

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I have been talking to stranded travellers in Sydney – probably the location with the highest number of people keen to get to the UK, but scuppered by the airspace closures in the Gulf. Today meet Keith Wood, who with his wife Jan is trying to get back to Belfast

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My guest today is Nicholas Wood, founder and director of Political Tours: friend of the podcast, to whom I talked to last May. Since then a vast amount has happened politically and in the travel realm – most recently the Foreign Office putting Cuba on the no-go list. He's been telling me tours are selling out fast. But what sort of people travel with him?

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Travel desk Tuesday – and today's excellent colleague just back from a big trip is Global Travel Editor Annabel Grossman. She has returned from wintry Finland, where she adored the handsome capital Helsinki – and in particular its amazing library – as well as South Karelia, bordering Russia.

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Just before I boarded a flight to China, I set out the scale of the problem caused by the closure of the three biggest Middle East air hubs – And considered what might happen next.

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Each year, heritage venues and attractions funded by the National Lottery offer special deals for anyone who can demonstrate they have played the lottery – a single ticket is all it takes. Darren Henley, CEO of Arts Council England and Chair of the National Lottery Forum, has been telling me more about the opportunities.

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That's the message from Thomas Woldbye, chief executive of Europe's busiest airport, who is keen to build a third runway and opening it to flights within a decade. He also tells me the passenger operation had run better than ever in 2025: “Ninety-eight per cent of our passengers waited less than five minutes in security, and we halved the amount of bags that didn't reach the intended flight.”

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For many British travellers who plan to travel to Ireland, or who happen to be dual nationals, red tape has become a lot more complicated from today. Aer Lingus, the Irish national airline now insists that passengers flying between Great Britain and the Republic carry passports – until now, many other forms of ID were accepted.

And any British citizens who also have a passport from another country face tougher controls when entering the UK. To try to make sense of it all

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Travel desk Tuesday – and the joy of working at The Independent is that my excellent colleagues are constantly returning from exciting places. Senior travel writer Natalie Wilson tells me about her first experience of Africa. She visited Borano Conservancy in Kenya – and can't wait to return to the continent.

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Many thousands of tourists are stranded in the resort of Puerto Vallarta after violence erupted following the killing of narcotics kingpin ‘El Mencho’. Most are American and Canadian visitors – dozens of flights were diverted or cancelled at Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara due to the upsurge in violence.

The vast majority of British travellers are in and around Cancun, 1,000 miles from the trouble. Should they be worried?

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