The FT visits Manzanar in the Californian desert which was an internment camp for 10,000 Japanese Americans in World War 2.  In 1988 President Reagan gave each of the 60,000 (there were 9 other camps) remaining camp survivors $20,000 and a letter saying sorry. Now it seems there is little left of the camps and few tourists make the trek deep into the desert. Also in The FT, another Nile Cruise and the top ski guides in Europe.

In The Independent Wayne Hemmingway takes his wife and four children on a trip across India taking in Delhi, Calcutta and plenty between the two. Susan Griffith goes to Australia’s Northern Territory (the wonderfully named Kakadu National Park) and there’s a rather uninspired skiing piece on Klosters.

The main piece in the NY Times is on Cape Town, concentrating on the surrounding areas rather than the town itself. There is a feature on the upmarket Cap Maison in St. Lucia and a look at Francis Bacon’s Madrid, where he died at the age of 82. There’s a look at Vail Mountain Club, one of a number of ski clubs in the US that are modelling themselves on golf clubs. The joining fee is $275,000!

In the Telegraph there’s trekking in Bhutan, off-piste skiing in Val d’Isere and another piece about Twitter in travel.

Mark Hodson goes to Ko Pha- Ngan in The Times and likes it. There’s also the Greek island of Kea and Robert Elms visits Mexico City and then heads to the coast.

It’s beach holidays in the Guardian with Ireland, St. Tropez and the blue train in South Africa.

The Telegraph goes camping in Australia in a strange 4×4 with a pop-up tent.

The Times goes to the dirtiest hotel in Britain according to Trip Advisor to see if it’s as bad as they say (it’s worse). They ask if there are any good all-inclusives (no). In fairness, they come up with 17 good ones, but all but four are pretty expensive. They also go to Veneto and Berlin.

The Irish Independent head to Sicily, where the “men are hotter-looking than Mount Etna”.

The West also head to Italy with a trip to Abano Terme (it’s in the north).

In The Telegraph Charles Starmer-Smith goes skiing in St Anton in a campervan and there’s an excellent piece on Laos (except their web links to the operator (TransIndus) don’t work. It’s always really frustrating for an operator who gives the paper a free trip, put loads of effort into making it go well and then the paper pays them back by putting a comma instead of a full stop in their URL)

In The Times Daniel Finkelstein gets around to writing up a trip he made to Crete three years ago. He must have been busy. Why don’t travel pieces put the date they travelled in the piece? I guess they wouldn’t be able to re-hash old articles. Elsewhere, Eleanor Mills visits the quirky but costly Carlisle Bay in Antigua. There’s also a visit to Saudi and whale watching off the Irish coast.

The NY Times goes spearfishing in Michigan. There’s slightly more appealing fishing in The Bahamas and Christine Woodside looks back at 7 years of taking her kids on The Appalachian Trail.

The Guardian goes on a wine trip in Argentina (nice), walking in Wales, another safari in Mozambique and comedy in Meribel. Comedy is in short supply though in part 4 of Danny’s desperately unfunny big adventure.

The  Telegraph heads north and goes late-season skiing in Norway and Sweden. Both can be summed by: good snow, nice vibe, moderate terrain, but very expensive alcohol. There’s more skiing in The Guardian with a trip to Vermont loosely linked to Obama and Slovakia. The Guardian also has Burkina Faso, Toga and Benin and B&Bs in Ghent.

The West has an interesting article on Macau and writes about couchsurfing.com, which now has over 900,000 members.

The Times has a safari in Abu Dhabi, Thailand and Mariella Frostrop goes to Parrot Cay in Turks & Caicos where a 5 room villa will set you back a mere $11,000 a night.

More skiing. The Chronicle goes to Banff and has a good time.

Skiing is part of the mixed bag in The Guardian this week, with a look at some of the more enterprising chalets in The Alps. There’s also a piece on cycling in Sardinia, which has a few too many typos and cliches.  More interesting is a prison visit in Bolivia. Reading Danny Wallace’s big adventure in Australia does test your will to live, so I move on to…..

Another “celebrity” writing about their travels. Fiona Bruce goes to Borneo in The Telegraph. Although I’m not sure I needed to know so much about her son’s swollen ankle and the final paragraph doesn’t make much sense, it is OK as “celebrity” pieces go.

The LA  Times has searched for a currency that was good value against the dollar and ended up in Iceland and found it was such good value they decided to go twice. They didn’t really, it’s just two different pieces about the same trip.

Sanity is restored at The Independent (despite yet more on Washington DC) where Stephen Wood skis in Formigal and the writing informative and honest. There’s an interesting article on the faster train links across Europe and there’s diving in Queensland.

At The Telegraph it’s Africa week with some budget-busters: a safari in Zambia and elephant watching in Kenya.

At The Times it’s a more frugal week with Caitlin Moran and family narrowboating in The Midlands.

Still on a  family theme there is a lukewarm article on break-dancing courses for teenagers at Sani. In what must have been a nightmare  for ITC Classics, who organised the piece, as apart from a Russian girl, the only children on the course belonged to  the writer. Fair play to Sani for trying something different for teenagers, but I’m not sure this is the answer.  Also, it’s the classic Catch-22; you want to give  it publicity to get numbers up, but without numbers it’s hard to write a glowing piece.

Elsewhere, following the water and families theme, The Times has a family houseboat trip off Venice and a fairly dull piece by a 16 year-old sans parents in Venice.

The Telegraph this week looked at Zermatt’s ski schools. Zermatt has healthy competition amongst its ski schools and Yolanda Carslaw had a private lesson with each of the five ski schools.

The thing about ski schools is that every school will have its share of good and not so good instructors. Providing a lesson for a journalist they are likely to pair them up with one of their better instructors. For private lessons one of the most important qualities is how well the instructor can speak English. For years the French have valued skiing proficiency over language skills in its instructors, but if they can’t communicate with you it limits the worth of the lesson.

A more useful exercise would be to compare how the schools teach children as this is of more concern to a lot of people and is where a lot of ski schools differ, both in terms of methods and quality.