I hope you can help. I have a couple of boys (12 and 10) who I’d like to take
on an adventure type holiday. I've heard that in France they have holidays
where you canoe and raft from location to location, staying in tents or
hotels along the way. This sounds great, but I can’t find any web sites that
give me this information. Can you help? - Tony Tugulu, via email
Our Family Travel Expert Emma Mahony replies: The idea of young boys
canoeing from location to location is quite a specific request –
particularly when the exhilaration of a canoeing holiday is enough to make
one crave the familiarity of the hotel bedroom at the end of the day.
I have found one break in St
Lary in the Pyrenees which would suit your boys well. The participants
need to be over 11 (or a good swimmer) so hopefully both should qualify. The
break is suitably adventurous with “hot dogging”, or racing down white-water
torrents in a two-man canoe, and costs around £275 per person for a
three-day break.
For the tent option, to spend a night in a bivouac with a fireside dinner, the
French Tourist board have a recommended tour
operator who ventures into the Loire valley for two days and a night
from as little as £70 per person.
This trip also promises adventure, but will not be as high-octane as the
activity break above. If your boys want to start soft and build up to
something a little more challenging, then you can’t go wrong with a trip
down the Loir river starting in the canals of the “little Venice” area
of the Bonneval, and kayaking down to the 16th Century inn at Le Saint
Jacques, with some white water en route.
Again, this trip is no more than £80 per person for two days and one night.
Finally, as you seem to be a man fully conversant with the web, may I direct
you to a special “white
water ahead” section of the French Tourist board site where over
50 recommended tour agents are listed by region offering kayaking breaks.
All can be booked online, if your French is a little rusty.
It's also worthwhile reading an article by Mark Hodson a couple of years ago
about camping,
canoeing and cycling in the Dordogne with his eight-year-old son. He
travelled with Explore on its Dordogne Adventure package.
It can be done - bon voyage!
Got a question about family travel? Email our trio of experts at yoursay@timesonline.co.uk-
Chloe Bryan-Brown takes care of questions for the 0-6 year olds, Emma
Mahony handles the 7-12 age group and Jane Owen the teenage and single
mother groups.
Where can we Safari ?
Next year, we want to go on a family safari to celebrate
my daughters 10th birthday and my 40th (gulp) !
Our daughter is no whimp! She is very gutsy and adventurous, and well travelled,
while still being very sensitive and caring to the local surroundings.
I went on safari 20 years ago with Busanga Trails, Kafue National Park, Zambia and absolutely thrived on the thrill and danger of going on night time drives.
Our daughter would also love this, but as a parent, I want somewhere just
as exciting but a little more safe. Where can you recommend? And when?
Our birthdays are in February.
Thank you in advance
Rebecca Partridge (and Larissa, aged 9 1/2 !)
rebecca Partridge, crawley, west sussex
My wife and I are booked to travel to India in Nov/Dec. The Indian High Commission website has recently announced that they are no longer accepting visa applications by post. They have published a list of travel agents in the London area who are authorised to provide visas on their behalf, but having contacted one of them (Saga), we were informed that we must book the holiday through Saga. The only options would appear to be an expensive, time-consuming and chaotic trip to the High Commission in London (we live in the East Midlands), ditto the Consulate in Birmingham or one of the regional clinics. Could you please advise why the Indian High Commission has withdrawn this convenient service, which will surely put many people off travelling to India on holiday. Also, apart from the alternatives that I have already mentioned, is there any other method of obtaining a visa which does not involve the additional expense of travel followed by a day spent queueing?
Thank you
Clive Frieland
Clive Frieland, Melton Mowbray, England