Chris Leadbeater
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Travel Correspondent @TelegraphTravel; @PressAwardsUK Travel Writer Of The Year 2024, 2026. Visitor of 101 countries, 39 US states. Proud European. Views my own
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Articles by Chris Leadbeater
How the 1956 Suez Crisis abruptly ended Britain’s era as a colonial power
There are many words that, in their echoing of dark chapters in British history, require no explanation. "Somme" would be one of them, "Dunkirk" a second, "Blitz" a third. "Suez" might be a fourth – although, now that it's more likely to conjure images of modern cruise liners and cargo ships, perhaps a little explanation is necessary.
How the 1956 Suez Crisis abruptly ended Britain’s era as a colonial power
The Suez Canal opened in 1869, but nearly 100 years later, it became a flashpoint for global geopolitics - Digital Vision Vectors There are many words that, in their echoing of dark chapters in British history, require no explanation. “Somme” would be one of them, “Dunkirk” a second, “Blitz” a third. “Suez” might be a fourth – although, now that it’s more likely to conjure images of modern cruise liners and cargo ships, perhaps a little explanation is necessary.
First look inside Portsmouth’s new £15m Royal Marines Experience
The latest addition to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is the height of discretion. Indeed, you might easily miss it as you wander in, your eye attracted to the ironclad elegance of HMS Warrior, moored near the entrance – or, perhaps, drawn further into the compound by the signposts promising those maritime celebrities HMS Victory and the Mary Rose. Even if you know precisely where you are going, the building does not give up its purpose readily.
The sad story of London’s great lost railway station
Chris Leadbeater Tue, October 20, 2026 at 8:00 AM EDT 9 min read Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google.
New York’s decline has been exaggerated. It’s the world’s best city by a mile
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New York’s decline has been exaggerated. It’s the world’s best city by a mile
As a wise soul (possibly Mark Twain, possibly Benjamin Disraeli) once said, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Which means that any attempt to arrange the planet’s major cities into one giant ranking based on their relative worth will always attract sceptical mutterings. Can you really, you might ask, measure Copenhagen against Cairo, or Honolulu against Hanoi? And if you do, will you come up with data of realistic merit?
Keep calm and carry on travelling: Britons undeterred by war and EES chaos
New data show that 88 per cent of the British population took a holiday in the last 12 months - Getty Images/Dan Kitwood British holidaymakers have continued to travel in significant numbers over the last year, a new survey has shown, in spite of the turbulence caused by war and border issues. However, the impact of the conflict in the Middle East and the introduction of the European Union’s Entry/Exit System (EES) is being felt across the travel industry.
The forgotten islands on the front line of England’s age-old rivalry with France
Hidden out in the swells, six miles east of Jersey, the Écréhous islands have long been a bone of contention in Europe - Alamy Stock Photo/Hemis Standing on the slipway of St Catherine’s Breakwater – the enormous harbour wall which, at almost half a mile in length, juts so far out into the Channel that it ranks as Jersey’s easternmost point – I cannot avoid the feeling that I have tumbled backwards through more than 800 years, and crash-landed in the early 13th century.
10 of the most atmospheric ruined abbeys in Britain
Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire is one of the most famous ruins in Britain - Alamy/David Angel Five centuries may have passed, but Henry VIII’s reign is still stamped across the country he ruled with flamboyance and rage. The Church of England that he founded when the pope refused to release him from his first marriage is still an ingrained part of British society.
The pioneering, colonial-era airline conceived during a drinking session
It is often said that some of the best ideas are sketched out on the back of a beer mat. In the case of Cathay Pacific, the grand old airline that turns 80 on Thursday, the concept wasn’t quite doodled onto a square of lager-wet cardboard – but its genesis nevertheless involved a hotel bar, a tropical evening, a fair few drinks and an argument about a comic strip. Officially, the airline’s story commenced on September 24, 1946, when five shareholders founded it in Hong Kong.
The glorious life and dreadful death of Britain’s greatest female aviator
A previously unseen photograph of pioneering pilot Amy Johnson has surfaced, believed to have been taken during her first few months of flying lessons between 1928 and 1929 - Matthew Lamb/UndercoverDrone Sometimes, a famous figure returns from the past with such a freshness of face that they might as well be staring at you from the present. This was the case last week when the story broke that a previously unseen image of Amy Johnson had emerged from the ether.
Sześć niewyjaśnionych katastrof lotniczych. I jedna zagadka, którą udało się rozwiązać po 74 latach
Dzisiejsze systemy radarowe i satelitarne, mapujące naszą planetę z niezwykłą dokładnością, sprawiają, że rodziny ofiar katastrof lotniczych rzadko muszą długo czekać na ustalenie miejsca, w którym zginęli ich bliscy. Poza jednym głośnym wyjątkiem, szczątki samolotów, które spadły z nieba, są na ogół odnajdywane wkrótce po katastrofie, nawet jeśli maszyna runęła na dno morza. Tym bardziej niezwykła wydaje się informacja, która ujrzała światło dzienne pod koniec ubiegłego miesiąca.
The 74-year mystery of Flight 526A – and six other unsolved air disasters
So advanced are the radar and satellite systems which now map our planet that, even if the worst happens, the relatives of those who die in air crashes are rarely left waiting long for the location of their loved ones to be pinpointed. With one major exception, the remains of planes which fall from the sky are generally found a short time after disaster has struck – even in cases where the unfortunate aircraft has plunged to the seabed.
Britain's most underrated wonders, according to 10 travel writers
We all like to think that we know our own country like the proverbial backs of our hands. From its highest mountaintops to its lowest valleys, via its most significant cities and its most genteel villages, Britain is fully mapped and measured. It has no further surprises to offer. But as anyone who has wandered extensively in Powys, Northumberland or the Highlands – or even Surrey, Sussex or Kent – will confirm, there is always a hidden corner that can stop you in your tracks.
Britain’s most underrated wonders, according to 10 travel writers
Witness the River Tees charge down through a rocky gorge near the market town of Middleton-in-Teesdale - iStockphoto We all like to think that we know our own country like the proverbial backs of our hands. From its highest mountaintops to its lowest valleys, via its most significant cities and its most genteel villages, Britain is fully mapped and measured. It has no further surprises to offer.
The fascinating history – and curious comeback – of the hovercraft
If you take a trip to the beach just west of Gosport on the second Saturday of August, there is a chance that you will notice something unusual in the shallows. It will be strangely familiar, but also something of a ghostly apparition, a form of transport which, at one point, seemed like a bright version of the future – only to quickly become obsolete. Certainly, the summer of 2026 seems an odd time to be setting up a new hovercraft route.
The strange and tragic story of the Costa Concordia
A little more than 11 years ago, in the early summer of 2015, I found myself in Genoa. I was there to research a travel story on the art museums and the architectural grandeur of Italy's sixth-biggest city. Yet for much of the weekend, my eye was drawn not to Baroque palaces or Veronese paintings, but to the shipwreck which was dominating the waterfront. You could not miss it.
The strange and tragic story of the Costa Concordia
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The tragic sinking of the 'Titanic of the 1950s'
Chris Leadbeater The sinking of the Titanic has entered folklore to such an extent that practically every other maritime disaster is measured against it. Equally, the dreadful loss of life on that bleak April night in 1912 – and the sequence of unfortunate events that precipitated it – was so awful that, on the face of it, nothing could ever really bear legitimate comparison.
The strange and sensational history of Air Force One
The second Trump presidency has witnessed a fair number of grandstanding moments, but none of them, perhaps, have been as big or as showy as the unveiling that took place at Joint Base Andrews towards the end of June. There, at this state-of-the-art military facility, just outside Washington in central Maryland, the curtain was pulled back on the Boeing 747-8 that will be the president's private plane for the next two years. But it will be rather more than a flying taxi.
The strange and sensational history of Air Force One
The second Trump presidency has witnessed a fair number of grandstanding moments, but none of them, perhaps, have been as big or as showy as the unveiling that took place at Joint Base Andrews towards the end of June. There, at this state-of-the-art military facility, just outside Washington in central Maryland, the curtain was pulled back on the Boeing 747-8 that will be the president's private plane for the next two years. But it will be rather more than a flying taxi.
The strange and sensational history of Air Force One
The second Trump presidency has witnessed a fair number of grandstanding moments, but none of them, perhaps, have been as big or as showy as the unveiling that took place at Joint Base Andrews towards the end of June. There, at this state-of-the-art military facility, just outside Washington in central Maryland, the curtain was pulled back on the Boeing 747-8 that will be the president's private plane for the next two years. But it will be rather more than a flying taxi.
This tranquil peninsula is an antidote to the noise of Detroit
I am not – to misquote Judy Garland and Dorothy Gale – in Detroit anymore. Motor City. The D. The 313. The big bad wolf of Michigan , prowling and howling on the border with Canada . A melting pot of steam and rust, pistons and petrol. I am no longer there. It has disappeared, vanishing in my mirrors like a cloud of grey industrial smoke, blown away by an ocean breeze.
Chasing waterfalls along Columbia River Gorge
West. It is all you ever hear said of journeys in the United States Route 66 trades on it. Every pioneer, settler and gap-toothed gold-panner was utterly obsessed with it. Throw in the Midwest, the Wild West, country and western music and the Gateway Arch in St Louis – often referred to as the “Gateway to the West” – and you might start to wonder whether the American compass is broken. Or if, at the very least, it has just one cardinal direction.
The amazing city divided by America's strangest state line
If you peer up at the side of the building which stands at the intersection of Main Street and 17th Street, you will notice a mural that pays tribute to Sporting Kansas City. A blaze of blue above the grey mundanity of a small car park, it reels off the recent achievements of the local (men's) Major League Soccer club – six trophies stencilled onto the brickwork. In many ways, the mural is unremarkable.
This tranquil peninsula is an antidote to the noise of Detroit
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The beauty and trauma of Mississippi’s barrier islands
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On the road to New England’s wild, northernmost tip
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Chasing waterfalls along Columbia River Gorge
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This lesser-known star of the Rocky Mountains rivals the Grand Canyon
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Sark may be mired in turbulence, but this Channel Island’s majesty is timeless
With the rays of early summer bouncing off the silver-grey shallows, the Channel Islands look plausibly similar to Aegean Greece. True, the Guernsey capital St Peter Port, sloping quaintly up its hillside, could never be confused with Athens, but as the ferry slips away into the morning heat, little Herm could be an Irakleia or a Koufonisia, its tiny satellite Jethou playing at being Glaronisi.
The awful story of the world’s most cursed cruise ship
The history of the world's great passenger ships is littered with corpses. Every last detail has been wrung from the tale of the Titanic, but the disaster has lost none of its tragedy. The sinking of Italian liner the SS Andrea Doria remains a source of controversy 70 years after the event.
The awful story of the world's most cursed cruise ship
The history of the world's great passenger ships is littered with corpses. Every last detail has been wrung from the tale of the Titanic, but the disaster has lost none of its tragedy. The sinking of Italian liner the SS Andrea Doria remains a source of controversy 70 years after the event.
Ignore the naysayers, St Louis is a worthy addition to the BA route map
Completed in 1963, the Gateway Arch was designed by Finnish-American Eero Saarinen - Paul Giamou/Cavan Images It is a warm spring afternoon, and St Louis is spectacularly failing to live up to its image. Although their heroes have just lost comprehensively to the Milwaukee Brewers, fans of the Cardinals – the city’s 11-time World Series-winning baseball team – are pouring out of the team’s downtown stadium in good spirits.
The world’s tallest buildings through history – and how to visit them
The status of the world's tallest building has been a subject of fascination for almost as long as humankind has been able to gaze upwards. And it is likely to be a topic of conversation again in the next couple of years – as the Jeddah Tower nears completion. Said architectural project, currently rising above Saudi Arabia's second city, will be the latest building to become the world's tallest when it reaches its full height. It is inching closer to this goal.
The greatest islands in the Med, ranked and rated
At the risk of stating the obvious, the Mediterranean Sea is a very big thing indeed. It spreads out to 970,000 square miles, touches the shores of three continents (Europe, Asia, Africa) and 22 countries, contains 15 "smaller" seas within it (including the Adriatic, the Ionian and the Tyrrhenian), and is home to some 10,000 islands and islets. How, if you were to attempt it, would you arrange those islands into some sort of logical order?
America’s coolest cities – decade by decade
It would require an enormous cake, and a huge number of candles – but America has a significant birthday this year. On July 4, it will be 250 years since the Declaration of Independence drew a line in the sand, and marked the emergence of a brand new nation. The setting for this announcement was, of course, Philadelphia.
How to plan a perfect trip on America’s Amtrak network
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Europe’s 40 greatest beaches
Europe may not be the world’s largest continent, but when it comes to coastline, it is definitely large enough. Across its 31,000 miles of seafront, it lays claim to some of the planet’s loveliest beaches. Lots of these shorelines are found on island edges in the Ionian and Aegean Seas, and in the broad blue of the Mediterranean.
The incredible story of Britain’s great forgotten female aviator
When conversation turns to the great female aviators of the 20th century, two names tend to trip off the tongue. Amelia Earhart, that fearless American breaker of boundaries, is always cited. So too is Amy Johnson, her English “rival” – who, in 1930, became the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia. But a third figure might easily be added to the discussion: Sheila Scott.
The irritating air passenger habits that are worthy of a fine
Ever an airline with a penchant for a spot of cheap publicity, Ryanair raised eyebrows a few days ago with a social media post that took a potshot at overly talkative passengers. Specifically, it took aim at those who cannot stop chatting on crack-of-dawn flights.
The irritating air passenger habits that are worthy of a fine
Jason Ford Ever an airline with a penchant for a spot of cheap publicity, Ryanair raised eyebrows a few days ago with a social media post that took a potshot at overly talkative passengers. Specifically, it took aim at those who cannot stop chatting on crack-of-dawn flights.
Britain's finest beaches – according to 10 writers
Too often, when we think of a beach, the mind's eye drifts towards the tropics. But that mental leap might just as easily go in search of the UK. This country has more than 7,700 miles of seafront, with numerous beauty spots dotted along it.
In pictures: The King’s most memorable overseas trips
The then Prince of Wales tries clog dancing in the Mexican city of Campeche, November 2014 - Getty It will be a busy week for King Charles and Queen Camilla. The royal couple have landed in Washington DC for a state visit to the United States that has already seen them greeted by President Donald Trump at the White House.
Britain's most enchanting woodland – according to 10 experts
Chris Leadbeater, Telegraph Travel experts The fragrance of flowers and the murmur of birdsong, sunshine filtering down through the canopy... few things can beat an afternoon spent wandering through a British wood, especially at this time of year, when the bluebells are flourishing. Here, 10Telegraphwriters pick out their favourite swathe of domestic woodland – from the soft treescapes of Devon and Somerset to the branches which bristle at Loch Lomond.
I discovered the secrets of London's forgotten ‘North Bank'
Chris Leadbeater Boadicea is staring at the Houses of Parliament, her head held high and her arms aloft. This is not news. After all, she has been here, on a plinth at the corner of Westminster Bridge, since 1902 – as the main figure in a sculpture by the Victorian artist William Thornycroft.
I discovered the secrets of London’s forgotten ‘North Bank’
Our writer Chris Leadbeater takes in one of the sphinx statues flanking Cleopatra’s Needle in Victoria Embankment - Julian Simmonds for The Telegraph Boadicea is staring at the Houses of Parliament, her head held high and her arms aloft. This is not news. After all, she has been here, on a plinth at the corner of Westminster Bridge, since 1902 – as the main figure in a sculpture by the Victorian artist William Thornycroft.
Twenty years on, Kazakhstan could not be further from Baron Cohen's boorish Borat comedy
Chris Leadbeater No one in the Green Bazaar on Zhibek Zholy Street bears the slightest resemblance to Borat. Everybody is far too busy, within the epic confines of Almaty's largest food market, for inane jokes or tomfoolery. There are piles of exotic fruit to be bought; mountains of bread in a multitude of sizes and shapes. There are jugs and pitchers of milk on offer as well – although not the ubiquitous dairy staples that you might expect to find at a deli counter.
Twenty years on, Kazakhstan could not be further from Baron Cohen’s boorish Borat comedy
A monument to the Silk Road at the entrance to Otrar – a city that has dotted the map since at least the first century BC - Chris Leadbeater No one in the Green Bazaar on Zhibek Zholy Street bears the slightest resemblance to Borat. Everybody is far too busy, within the epic confines of Almaty’s largest food market, for inane jokes or tomfoolery. There are piles of exotic fruit to be bought; mountains of bread in a multitude of sizes and shapes.
The 15 best holiday destinations for April sun
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