Caitlin Barr

Ah, September. In the northern hemisphere, summer is drawing to a close, but in the south, spring is only just beginning. It’s a time between the mid-year travel peak and the busy festive season, and that means it’s a solid time to get away.  It’s also cheaper, the weather is more temperate and there’s a cracking roster of festivals and local traditions scheduled for this time of year, from region-wide book fairs and rock music festivals to scenic annual wine tours and massive flea markets. So, no matter the vibe you’re after this September, our list of the best places to travel will have something for you. RECOMMENDED:✈️The best places to travel in October🗺️Full guide to the best places to travel🛍️The world’s coolest neighbourhoods🎭The best cities for culture right now At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by local writers who know their cities inside out. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines and check out our latest travel guides written by local experts. This guide includes affiliate links, which have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, see our affiliate guidelines. 

Europe is incredible for festivals, make no mistake about it. And what could be better? Travelling to festivals abroad means getting to explore somewhere new and see a bunch of cracking artists, as well as maybe – just maybe – enjoy better weather and cheaper beer. Europe is certainly not in short supply of some really brilliant places to party, from tiny, lesser-known spots in the Azores to your classic, mega, headliner-packed fests in France and Netherlands and Alpine jazz weekends. So, here’s a roundup of our top picks for 2025.  What is the largest festival in Europe? Glastonbury festival in the UK is normally thought of as the biggest festival in Europe (if not the world). But though it’s certainly the most well known, in terms of numbers, it’s not even the the biggest in the UK! The biggest in Europe is actually Donauinselfest in Vienna, Austria, which sees upwards of two million visitors a year. After that, it’s probably joint between Glasto and Tomorrowland in Belgium.  RECOMMENDED: 🎪 The best UK music festivals🎤 The best music festivals in the world🌃 The most underrated destinations in Europe🌤️ The best European city breaks At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by local writers who know their cities inside out. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. This guide includes affiliate links, which have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, see our affiliate guidelines. 

There isn’t really a bad time of year to go on holiday, but if, like the majority of us, you plan on packing a bag and heading off on a jaunt in August, we’re here to help. Why? Well, go-to summer destinations can mean copping a sunbed feels more like a military drill, and flights and accommodation teeter at the more expensive end of the scale – hardly relaxing, is it? Fear not, weary traveller. There are in fact plenty of spots across the planet which show their quieter side in August, making it the best time of year to go and appreciate them, from the plains of East Africa to the streets of South America. So, without further ado, these are the best places in the world to travel in August.  RECOMMENDED:✈️The best places to travel in September🗺️Full guide to the best places to travel🛍️The world’s coolest neighbourhoods🎭The best cities for culture right now At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by local writers who know their cities inside out. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines and check out our latest travel guides written by local experts. This guide includes affiliate links, which have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, see our affiliate guidelines. 

Hanging plants, theatre posters and a sketch of a Christ-like figure named ‘Canal Jesus’ adorn the walls of Rosie Barwick’s narrowboat. Tess, her elderly dachshund, occasionally pipes up with a little bark, but apart from that, the spot she’s moored in near Westbourne Park is quiet – a good place for spotting waterfowl and watching cyclists teeter along the towpath.  The 26-year-old has been living onboard for six and a half years after dropping out of university and buying the boat with inheritance money. ‘I’ve always been thoroughly against the idea of just throwing money away to some faceless landlord that I don’t know and isn’t really providing me with a service – I wanted autonomy over my own space,’ she says. Barwick shares the boat with her friend, Tom, who works in the creative industries and became attracted to the lifestyle after being faced with homelessness when his landlord ended his contract a year early.  As a part-time charity worker and theatremaker, living on a boat and not being liable for rent gives Barwick the financial freedom to pursue work in sectors which are notoriously underpaid. ‘This lifestyle has allowed me to actually explore, and become the person I want to be,’ she says. ‘It’s given me the freedom to get it wrong and for that to be fine and for me not to lose my house over it’.  Photograph: Caitlin Barr for Time Out Barwick is a ‘continuous cruiser’, meaning she does not pay for a permanent mooring and is bound to certain regulations when us

Ever since Padella opened in Borough Market, and queues started to snake outside for its simple, affordable pasta small plates, London has become a city of pasta-fiends, lusting after linguine and Instagramming anelli. More and more hip Italian restaurants have opened across the capital serving up stylish, saucy, cheesy and downright-delicious strands of dough and we're also stocking up on perfect fresh pasta from delis like Lina Stores and diving into plates of trad pasta at Ciao Bella in Bloomsbury, as well as bottomless lasagna at Senza Fondo. Here are the finest pasta places in town.  RECOMMENDED: London's best Italian restaurants. 

UPDATE: The Woolwich Foot Tunnel reopened on April 25 2025. London’s riversides are some of the most beautiful places to view the city from, whether you’re looking out from the South Bank to St Paul’s, or seeing the stunning Royal Naval College rise from the banks at Greenwich.  When it comes to crossing the Thames, you’ve got plenty of choice in west and central London (unless you’re a vehicle trying to cross Hammersmith Bridge, of course). Venture east, though, and options get more sparse. You’re down to the DLR, or a handful of foot tunnels, road tunnels and ferries, some of which come with a fee.  East Londoners, we bring you sad news: the river just got even harder to traverse thanks to the closure of one of the key eastern crossings, the Woolwich Foot Tunnel. The tunnel, which has been operating without one of its lifts for the last three years, has closed until further notice due to drainage problems.  Announcing the closure on social media on Thursday April 25, Greenwich Council initially stated that it was down to a ‘public safety issue’ before clarifying that ‘emergency drainage maintenance’ was the cause.  The 113-year-old tunnel has been facing problems since a refurbishment job in 2011, and more recently has been without its north lift since August 2022. Difficulty sourcing lift parts has been blamed for the fact that it still hasn’t been fixed nearly three years on.  Linking Woolwich to North Woolwich, the tunnel was built for dock workers and is co-owned by Gre

So. You’ve been watching the tens of thousands of sporty people taking to London’s streets for the marathon, and you’re thinking you might want to give it a go. Maybe you watched live, witnessing peak performance and wondering if next year, it could be you high-fiving strangers as you struggle across Tower Bridge. Maybe you’re on the sofa with your feet up, watching on TV and saying ‘I could do that’ to anyone who’ll listen. But hold your horses! You’ve got to get in first. The London Marathon’s entrants get in through ballot – and every year many, many more people apply to run the race than actually get in.  Before you put down the crisps, mainline protein shakes and don your best trainers, here’s the deal on what to expect when you’re applying for the capital’s most prestigious jog.  Here's our winning guide to this year’s London Marathon.🌤️ The 2025 London Marathon weather forecast.👟 How to track runners at the 2025 London Marathon. When is the London Marathon 2026? Next year’s race will be held on Sunday April 26.  When is the London Marathon ballot announced? If you’re limbering up for 2026, you’ll need to act fast: the ballot is open now. It opened on Friday April 25, and closes just a week later, on Friday May 2. You'll find out in June or July if you’ve got in, giving you around 10 months to actually prepare.  Entry fees The standard entry fee for the ballot is £79.99, up from £69.99 in previous years. If you choose to donate that money to the London Marathon char

Housing in London is a truly depressing topic of conversation, especially if you’re trying to get on the property ladder. The average price of a home in the city is £556,000, way above the UK average of £330,000. That’s a loooot of cups of matcha latte (more than 139,000 actually).  It all seems pretty hopeless, unless you’ve got a rich relative on their last legs, or you win that mad competition for a big house in Borough. And money’s only half the issue – the Greater London Authority (GLA) estimates that London needs around 66,000 new homes annually, with two-thirds being affordable, but construction has fallen significantly short of this target.  But fret not. A long overlooked northwest London suburb may just be the housing hero we’ve been waiting for, and it’s on the Piccadilly line.  Alperton in Brent is set to become the next hub for hopeful young buyers, with 6,000 new homes being delivered this year. It was designated a Housing Zone by Boris Johnson way back in 2015 when he was Mayor of London and is a key Growth Area for the borough. The suburb is just 30 minutes away from Green Park, and situated right next to the Grand Union Canal – so it’s perfect for chilled out strolls, with two local parks, One Tree Hill and Barham Park, on its doorstep. The area will is currently undergoing improvements to infrastructure including new community facilities and better access to public transport. There are several new developments at different price points being built in the are

So, you didn't sign up to run the London Marathon this year. No one’s judging: 26.2 miles is a looong way, and we can’t all don comedy outfits and pace around London. No – your destiny is to be a supporter, cheering on runners in person or from your living room. And maybe, among the record-breaking 56,000 people taking to the streets to run the course this weekend, there’s a special sprinter who you’d like to cheer extra loud for – a friend, a family member or that colleague who won’t shut up about protein. You’ve staked out the best spectator spots, made your witty sign, packed the energy-boosting gels to disperse at opportune moments, and even planned how your preferred pacer is going to maximise their access to marathon freebies. But how on earth are you going to work out when to meet them at the finish line with a well deserved beverage if you don’t know where they are? How are you going to know when to send a ‘congrats!’ message from your sofa, if you’ve got no clue if they’re close to the end? Fear not. Here’s your comprehensive guide to tracking your fleet-footed fave on marathon day. 🏃‍♂️ Your winning guide to the London Marathon 2025🏅 All the best freebies for London Marathon runners 2025🌤️ The 2025 London Marathon weather forecast.⏱️ All the race waves and start times. When does the race start? Timings are staggered throughout the morning, with the elite wheelchair race beginning at 8.50am. Elite women will hit the ground running at 9.05am, and the elite men wil

Hundreds of thousands of us will be lining London’s streets this weekend as the marathon makes its way through town. No matter where you’re planning on watching from along the 26.2 mile route, you’re going to want to be warm and dry – but is the weather going to fall in line? 2020’s marathon day was infamously soggy, with torrential rain dogging runners who chose to do the route in London for the entire race. 2018 holds the record for the hottest marathon day so far, when temperatures reached 24.1 degrees.  Could Sunday bring any surprises? We’ve rounded up all the predictions for race day’s forecast, so you can rest easy and let the runners do all the hard work.  RECOMMENDED:🏃‍♂️ Your winning guide to the London Marathon 2025🏅 All the best freebies for London Marathon runners 2025✅ How to enter the 2026 London Marathon ballot.⛔️ London Marathon 2025 road closures.👟 How to track runners at the 2025 London Marathon.⏱️ All the race waves and start times. The weather forecast for the 2025 London Marathon It looks like the big day will be a bit windy, with the BBC predicting light winds to peak at about 3pm. Race-time temperatures are likely to climb from 12 degrees at 9am, when the elite runners will be limbering up on the start line, to a pleasant (if not actually quite hot) 20 degrees between 3pm and 6pm – the ideal time for pints in a packed pub garden to celebrate a race well run.  There’s no rain predicted for Sunday according to the BBC, which is excellent news for runn

London’s streets are packed with keen runner beans at the best of times, but this Sunday there’ll be a record-breaking 56,000 of them pounding the pavements, roads and bridges of our capital.  Whether you’re hoping to support a sporty pal in person, or you want to avoid the whole course like the plague, here’s all the info you need about waves, timings and route.  The 2025 London Marathon with Time Out🏃‍♂️ Your winning guide to the race.🏅 All the best freebies for runners.🌤️ The race weather forecast.⛔️ Road closures you need to know about.👟 How to track runners. How many waves are there at the start of the London Marathon? TCS London Marathon hasn’t confirmed exactly how many waves there will be at Sunday’s race.  What are the wave start times? The elite wheelchair race will start at 8.30am, with elite female runners beginning the course at 9.05am. Elite male runners will kick off at 9.35am, and from then onwards, the other waves of normies (and some famous faces, like Romesh Ranganathan and Alexandra Burke) will start their lap of the 26.2 mile long route. Waves are based on runners’ predicted finish times. Joining an earlier wave is a big no no, but participants can slot into a later wave if they want to. Where does the London Marathon start and finish? The London Marathon starts in Greenwich Park and finishes on The Mall, taking in sights like the Cutty Sark, Tower Bridge, and Big Ben on the route.  Photograph: TCS London Marathon How to track the runners You can do

British weather is just about the most unpredictable thing ever – and spring can be particularly random.  Is it jacket weather? Are we about to get blown away or drowned in torrential rain? We can never be certain. When good weather is forecast, it feels a little bit like someone’s pulling our leg. But suspend your disbelief – the UK is being treated to some serious sunshine next week, with temperatures predicted to reach up to 27C by Wednesday (April 30). Here’s all the hot goss on next week’s hot spell.  Temperatures are pretty average over the weekend, with highs of around 21C in the south and 17C in the north - good news for both London and Manchester’s marathon runners, who’ll be dry and not too hot as they battle 26.2 miles.  From Monday onwards, the temperature will start to rise to an average of 22-23C, and by Wednesday it’s expected that the Midlands and the south east will be basking in 25-27C heat, perfect conditions for a barbie or a pub garden sesh.  This means lots of us will be treated to the hottest day since last September, and the hottest April day since 2018 (the last time temperatures reached 27C in April). The mini-heatwave is thanks to a ‘blocked weather pattern’ bringing continental temperatures up from Europe. Normally, weather systems (like high and low pressure areas) move along pretty steadily from west to east thanks to ‘jet streams’ in the atmosphere. But in a blocked pattern, something causes that flow to slow down or stop, kind of like a traffic

As London inches closer towards marathon day, you might be one of the tens of thousands of entrants carefully considering your tactics for pacing yourself, refuelling, and making sure your mates get the best pics of you looking demure and sporty next to a famous landmark.  Running – it’s quite hard, isn’t it? Sweaty and tiring and quite miserable, if we’re honest. Legs are only good for so much, and 26.2 miles is quite long. Much easier to be a Formula 1 driver in a shiny car instead, with the ability to just… zoom around.  What if we told you this dream could become a reality, and you could be zipping around the course like little Lando Norris this Sunday, thanks to tips from F1 experts? Though, to be clear, you’ll need to run, and there isn’t a podium with champagne afterwards (unless your friends are really committed to the bit).  🏃‍♂️ Your winning guide to the London Marathon 2025🏅 All the best freebies for London Marathon runners 2025🌤️ The 2025 London Marathon weather forecast.⛔️ All the London Marathon road closures you need to know about.👟 How to track runners at the 2025 London Marathon. The quick-witted bods at F1 Arcade have reimagined the London Marathon course as a race track, plotting out the ideal spots to overtake, refuel, and get an edge on the competition. Forget sub-4 - you can smash all your PBs with these nifty tricks.  Here’s some sage advice from the pros on how to get round the track in record time, using just your legs.  First up, here are the id

We’ve all been guilty of leaving leftover Easter or Christmas chocolate lying around for slightly too long, but one bar found in Bristol definitely has everyone beaten.  The vanilla chocolate bar was made 125 years ago in 1900, and could command a high price at auction when it goes under the hammer in June.  The slightly whiffy sweet treat can trace its history all the way back to the Boer War, when Queen Victoria decided that troops needed some cheering up as they fought in South Africa. She commissioned the three biggest chocolatiers at the time (J S Fry & Sons, Cadbury Brothers Limited and Rowntree and Company Limited) to make over 120,000 of the bars, each weighing half a pound. Packaged in special tins bearing the monarch’s image, as well as the inscriptions ‘South Africa 1900’ and ‘I wish you a happy New Year’ in her handwriting, they were shipped off to soldiers to boost morale.  Photograph: Auctioneum Bristol The tins’ rounded corners meant they could be easily slipped into pockets for a little snack throughout the day, but some soldiers chose to post the chocolate back to their loved ones at home, or traded with other troops for tobacco.  Some of these uneaten bars have survived, but they’re pretty rare, and the Bristol bar, in its original tin with foil wrapping still partially intact, is expected to raise between £250 and £400 at auction. That’s a lot of bars of Dairy Milk.  ‘This is a remarkable survivor,’ said specialist Lucy McCourt at Auctioneum Ltd. ‘This wo

Some of the most iconic pubs in the UK have earned their glory by simply being around for a really, really long time. Our isles are overflowing with ye olde establishments with tenuous links to historical figures (pint in a boozer Sir Francis Drake may or may not have sat in once, anyone?), but some are really special, and deserve credit for weathering the storm of hospitality throughout multiple centuries.  One such spot was the Hole in the Wall, Torquay’s oldest pub, which had been serving pints since 1540. Despite surviving wars, crises, pandemics and the shifting fortunes of the hospitality industry for nearly 500 years, it tragically closed its doors on April 13.  Complete with cobbled floors and wooden beams, the Devon watering hole was famed in the area for its daily live music and local brews. It opened in the same year that Henry VIII married and subsequently divorced Anne of Cleves, and its first customers were smugglers and pirates.  After nearly half a millennium, the establishment was forced to shut this month due to the rising costs leading to hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of debt, according to its 81-year-old landlord, Richard Rossendale-Cook. Speaking to ITV News last month, he stated: ‘I'm very, very sad, of course, I'd like to carry on. But unless somebody comes up - a Russian oligarch or someone will give me £360,000 to go and pay off the bill, you are going to shut and that's the end of it.’  The pub’s closure was officially announced on March 26 w

Over 50,000 people will be flocking to London this Sunday April 27 to take part in this year’s London Marathon, and the streets will be packed with supporters with wry signs and energy-boosting snacks. We love to see the city alive with sporty people and their pals, but if your idea of a well-spent weekend doesn’t involve watching other people get some serious Strava stats, there’s plenty more to do: why not check out the Queer East film festival, or Lewisham’s Books in the Park?  📍 The best things to do in London this weekend. No matter what you get up to, all those extra bodies sprinting through the city are going to have an impact on your journey, with central London trains and tubes likely to be heaving. What are the closures and disruption affecting London’s network this weekend? Let’s get into it.  London April 25-27 tube and train closures – full list Waterloo and City line There will be minor delays on Friday April 25 due to train shortages, and the line will be closed as usual over the rest of the weekend (April 26 and 27).  Elizabeth line On Sunday April 27, service will be reduced between Paddington and Heathrow Terminal 4 / Maidenhead, with no trains serving Acton Main Line, West Ealing or Hanwell. There will be two trains per hour serving Heathrow Terminal 4, Heathrow Terminal 5, West Drayton, Langley, Slough, Burnham and Maidenhead, and four trains per hour serving Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3.  Six trains per hour will serve Ealing Broadway, Southall and Hayes & H

There wasn’t much cause for celebration in 2020, when Covid was rife and Londoners could no longer properly enjoy the culinary delights of the capital. That was, until restrictions finally loosened in the summer, and many boozers and restaurants threw their doors open again.  In Soho, dining and drinking spilled out onto the streets as part of the ‘Soho Summer Street Festival’, set up to encourage guests back into the square mile for alfresco dining. With many streets closed to traffic, the scheme, which ran again in the summer of 2021, breathed life into an area which had been deadly quiet throughout the lockdown.  Now, according to intel from the Times, ‘Alfresco Soho’ could return. The newspaper has apparently had access to a letter penned by two of Sadiq Khan’s deputies, Howard Dawber and Justine Simons, urging London’s boroughs to ‘do what you can to support popular and exciting ideas like alfresco dining and late-night openings’ as evenings get warmer throughout the spring and summer months. The letter also encourages boroughs to act soon, before the Mayor’s pilot scheme allowing him to override licensing decisions made by individual authorities comes into effect.  Since the Soho scheme’s success during 2020 and 2021, campaigners have been calling on Westminster City Council to bring back pavement dining. When it was announced in November that Oxford Street is being eyed for pedestrianisation, local group Soho Business Alliance (SBA) urged City Hall to include Soho in