Recommended for pure romance and delight for bright cold winter days, (though beautiful in summer too). Give yourself two days. Drive through the winding Alpujarras mountains to reach El Ventorro, a rural hotel and restaurant, a couple of kilometres outside Alhama de Granada. Here, you can feast on incredible local food, from mushrooms collected in the forest, to local cheese and serrano ham, washed down with surprisingly delicious locally produced wine (well marketed in smart bottles- take one home with you) by a roaring fire in winter. At night you can stay in a beautifully lit cave room, with a four poster bed-the best sleep of your life! And the next day, you can choose whether to luxuriate in the atmospheric, heavenly (and spotless) Arabic baths built in the next door caves, or walk through the sandstone river valley and canyon to the historic town of Alhama de Granada, replete with Nazari ruins, a castle, historic squares, fountains and everything that Andalucia has to offer. If you can fit in the baths and the walk, you may be tempted to stay a second night in one of those beautiful caves and start the whole cycle again! And this whole delicious assault on the senses (cave bedroom, dinner, breakfast arabic baths) will only set you back about 70 euros. Stunning.

www.elventorro.net/
Carretera de Jatar, KM 2, 18120 Alhama de Granada
+34958 350 438
Google map: bit.ly/k4yFj4

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The hometown of Shakira! If you like music, colours, heaps of flowers, dancing, coloured masks, rum, folklore and much more, then Baranquilla is the place to go for Carnival. Highlights include the 'battle of the flowers' with carts laden with kaleidescopic flower arrangements, parades with dancers wearing giant heads with long noses, and of course, the music of Colombia - the cumbia, paloteo, congo- and dancing to match. Colombians know how to party, and Baranquilla is the best of the best!

www.carnavaldebarranquilla.org/
Google map: bit.ly/hnMim2

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This is one of the most beautiful national parks in the Caribbean, with coastal forests running down to untouched white beaches and a warm sea. Ok, so the travel there is not the 'budget' part, but all of the rest is! Fly to Santa Marta via Bogota, then get a cheap local bus (or taxi, for a bit more) to the main gates of Parque Tayrona at El Zaino. Walk, thumb a lift, or wait for a local bus from the entrance to the sea. Once there, you will need to be prepared to walk for 45 minutes along the most wonderful forest and coastal path, where you can hear howler monkeys, see bright blue morpho butterflies fluttering in the rays of sunlight, maybe even encounter an agouti. As you emerge on the beach at San Juan del Cabo, you will find a simple beach restaurant and some huts with hammocks for a pound a night, and toilet blocks too. You can also hire tents and lockers to lock up your valuables. You can spend days and days here, lying on the beach, snorkelling, hiking into the forest to visit indigenous communities, watching the formation squadrons of pelicans fly past, talking to the fishermen who will cook a delicious fish and potato soup on the beach and perhaps offer you a bowl, and, most importantly, walking along the beach in the morning to the local bakery serving cheese and chocolate bread, which has to be tried to be believed. Stand on the beach with your back to the sea, and you can look up into the Sierra de Santa Marta mountains, and see the snow-topped peaks.

Fly into Santa Marta with Avianca, the Colombian national airline, from Bogota www.avianca.com
Google map: bit.ly/hwnqHm

Catch a bus/taxi from Santa Marta to the Park's main entrance.
www.colombia.travel/en/international-tourist/vacations-holidays-where-to-go/recommended-weekend-destinations/tayrona-national-park

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Fabulous beach with great waves and an incredible campsite where you wake up with a full panorama of the sea Watch out if it's raining though as it always floods! A campervan probably a better bet if you're lucky enough to have one. Ok pub, but much nicer ones just along the coast in Littlehaven.

Google map: tinyurl.com/2voe57n

www.newgalecampingsite.co.uk/
Wood Farm, Newgale, Haverfordwest
Pembrokeshire, Wales, SA62 6AR
01437 710253

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