Travel tips

Notes from the desk.

Short, practical pieces on the things we get asked most — written by the people who handle them every day.

The five documents that cause most visa refusals

Refusals are rarely about who you are. They are about a bank statement that stops three weeks early, or an invitation letter with no address on it.

The advice you have read is mostly folklore. Here is what genuinely moves the price, and the two windows that matter.

One bag, thirty degrees of temperature range, and no laundry stop. A method that has survived a lot of testing.

Several airlines will give you a second city for nothing. Most travellers connect through it in ninety minutes instead.

Have a question we have not written about?

If it turns out to be a question lots of people have, it usually ends up on this page.