Abades is neither picturesque nor a fishing village. It does boast some decent coves and an interesting abandoned leper village, but the place itself is in reality a bland newish housing development on the east coast of Tenerife.

That it made it onto a Lonely Planet list illustrates how some travel lists should be treated with caution.

Some writers despise travel lists, viewing them as lazy travel writing designed to pull in lots of readers with the minimum of effort. However, statistics show people like lists. They’re the tapas of travel writing. In the one sitting you get to experience a taste of many different locations in bite-sized chunks. Plus, importantly, the good ones are very useful when it comes to travel planning.

The sad truth is that many travel lists are virtually useless.

The question is how do readers separate the wheat from chaff?

The bad travel lists

Arbitrary lists:- when it comes to travel lists many are just a random collection of places connected by some tenuous link. Whenever I see the likes of ’10 most picturesque towns in the world’, ’11 best seafood restaurants in Europe’ or ‘the 26 sexiest bars in the Universe’ I skip on to the next article. The bigger the geographical area a list covers, the more likely it is to be arbitrary. Any title falling into this category could also carry the subheading ‘the 12 (insert number of choice) best places that we can think of.’

Clickbait:- clickbait lists are designed to draw people in. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as what you get reeled in to read is worthy. A few years ago lists with numbers that weren’t 10, 5 or even 6 of the best etc. caught the eye because they’d strayed from the standard format. Now lists with titles like ’32 things to do in Latvia’ are so common they’ve become cliched and formulaic – travel writing by random numbers. That’s not to say there aren’t still some clever ones out there. We recently received a press release which included reasons not to visit a hotel in the Far East. These were obviously reasons designed to make people crazy with desire to visit the hotel. It was intelligent, creative and compelling marketing. Most aren’t. Some of the worst are the ’15 places in Europe you’ve never heard of’ type list. I often wonder what someone who lives in one of the ‘places you’ve never heard of’ thinks about that sort of title. It’s dumb. The worst I saw included Dubrovnik and Edinburgh.

Copywriting:- A significant number of travel lists are compiled by people who have never visited the places they include on their lists. It’s standard copywriting. I have nothing but the utmost respect for good copywriters. They are worth their weight in gold to travel companies wanting to perk up brochures and websites etc. The problem for me is when copywritten articles are passed off as experiential travel pieces. That’s simply deception. The main issue though is too much copywriting is badly researched, making lists pointless at best and worse, likely to cause disappointment when locations don’t match glowing recommendations (see Abades at the start). Occasionally they might even be dangerous. A recent ‘copywritten’ travel article I read included information about the difficulty levels of walking routes on Tenerife. The writer came across as being informed in what is a specialist subject, except they’d graded some challenging walking routes as easy and some relatively easy routes as being difficult.

Because it is new:- including places/locations in a travel list just to have a compilation which is ‘different’ is more a habit of the conventional travel press. Publications understandably want a different angle, so writers look for locations, bars, restaurants which aren’t regularly mentioned in travel articles. However, there’s often a vary good reason some locations aren’t regularly referenced in travel writing (see Abades at the start).

It’s been overdone but we’re pretending it hasn’t:- similarly, there are some locations which have been done to death. Cinque Terre in Italy for example. Mostly these locations are gorgeous, but everybody knows about them and subsequently they’re often very busy places. That’s no reason not to visit, but some lists don’t give readers the heads up about it. To coincide with Valentine’s Day, CN Traveler published a list of romantic small towns in Europe. There are delightful towns listed which are definitely worth seeing, and subsequently the likes of Sintra and Hallstatt are massively popular day-tripper destinations. But the article omits this information. In fact it claims Korcula in Croatia is so remote it keeps the pretty little town free of crowds. We couldn’t find a free parking space when we rolled into town.

The good travel lists
For all my griping, I’m a fan of travel lists. Like any person researching a holiday I find them extremely useful for giving me ideas for places to visit and for laying a framework from which to build on. The smaller the focus of a list, the better. So compilations involving individual countries, regions, cities, towns etc. tend to work for me. There are plenty of writers who know locations well enough to compile helpful, insightful and informed lists. Then there are travel publications which take a smart approach to compiling lists. These include those newspapers and magazines who ask writers they know to have extensive knowledge of specific destinations to put forward suggestions for places/locations to be included in their ‘best of’ lists.

The problem, as is so often the case with any aspect of the media these days, is how to tell the good from the bad and the ugly, those which knowingly deceive and simply don’t care. It’s difficult. Normally we’d say the devil is in the detail. Anything with a lack of detail, where there’s no feel of the writer’s personality or personal experience coming through is likely to just be copy, which in itself doesn’t render advice useless.

In the case of travel lists there’s no easy answer when it comes to knowing which you can trust and which you can’t. However, knowing what ingredients constitutes a bad travel list can help.

Right, I’m off to write twenty two and a half reasons why you should visit the most disgusting public toilets in Britain’s industrial cities.

Jack is co-editor, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to online travel sites and travel magazines. Follow Jack on Google+

There was only one problem. Someone had removed a chunk of the hillside with a JCB and the road our path was supposed to emerge on to lay 10 feet directly below us. So close and yet so far. This had not been a good walk and it certainly wasn’t getting any better.

It should have been great, but even before the rain turned the world miserable there was something missing. Korcula is a typically beautiful Croatian island known for its vineyards and as being the (hotly disputed) birthplace of one of the greatest travellers ever, Marco Polo.

The route started at the little harbour hamlet of Grscica – a place that could do with  investing in a couple more vowels. It was already a grey day and the sea chopped at the harbour, threatening to overrun it. As the only place to park was quite close to the water, there was an immediate concern that the sea might rise up and swallow our hire car. This was a ‘there and back again’ type of route where the ‘there’ wasn’t the easiest place to get to, so we were relying on the car being there when we got back. Plus, trying to explain to the hire company why we parked the car in a place where the sea could grab it didn’t appeal.

The low grey clouds sucking all the colour from the landscape didn’t help the situation. It’s at times like these you realise how much a bit of brightness can make the world around you perk up no end.

The way was uninspirational for a couple of kilometres and overgrown damp grass spitting at the tops of our boots didn’t help. It just didn’t feel right. We’ve walked in grey damp/wet weather before and although it might not make for the greatest walking, when the route is good it doesn’t steal all the pleasure from it. This felt like a narky route, like it didn’t really want to be a walking trail at all.

Things improved as we ascended onto a flat plain where wild flowers and olive groves managed to inject their livelier shades into the monochrome landscape. Ahead, long grasses swayed with purpose before a small fox bounced onto the path and off again so quickly I wasn’t sure if he’d been real.

It was the highlight of the walk.

After that the rain started, accelerating from spit to downpour in 60 seconds – right at the part where the path decided it really didn’t want to be a path at all. We lost precious ‘dry’ time trying to find where it got over its little strop and started behaving again before, as the heavens were breached, it finally crossed its arms, stomped its feet and screamed ‘I’m not going any further’.

For a few moments we stood flabbergasted that the path had simply disappeared. The scene was exactly the same on either side as far as we could see. There was no detouring to a lower section. The only thing to do was to grab a tree root, shimmy down as far as I could and jump.

Now muddy as well as wet, I helped ease Andy down the slimy bank as she followed suit.

Like dirty, drowned rats we squelched our way into Blato and the nearest open bar, a heavy metal haunt which was preparing to be the nearest closed bar. At least it provided temporary warmth and shelter and they didn’t bat an eyelid at our dirty, sodden clothes as we soiled their nice wooden chairs.

After a brief reprieve and the chance to go from sopping wet to just wet, we were back on the puddle-plagued streets till we found further shelter underneath the arches of the town hall. From our dry position we could see Blato looked like it would be a quite pretty town if it wasn’t so wet and miserable.

We scoured the skies, hoping for the slightest lightening of the grey cover above us, but the rain continued to fall with a consistent vigour. We were five kilometres from the car, the rain wasn’t going to let up, there was no local bus and even if we decided to walk back there was a 10 foot high mud wall to negotiate… and the bars were shut.

We’re normally very lucky. Most walking routes we follow are wonderful, sometimes to the point of being inspirational… even when the weather hasn’t been perfect. I mention this walk because the tendency is to always write about the good ones; the ones with a strong or quirky personality and views to wow. And it simply isn’t always like that.

On the other hand, as we stood counting raindrops and hearing a fictional clock tick down the minutes as we pondered how we were going to resolve our not so great state of affairs it reminded us of one of the wonderful things about walking.

Even poor routes can lead to little adventures and challenges. You never know exactly where that path will take you.

Jack is co-editor, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to online travel sites and travel magazines. Follow Jack on Google+

Most people who visit Korcula in Croatia tend to favour historic Korcula Town. No surprise. Despite having excellent sunsets and the stylish and comfy Hotel Korkyra, Vela Luka doesn’t have the charm of the town at the very other end of the island. It does have Konoba Ribar though.

Dining Style: With stone walls, a beamed ceiling and fishing nets hanging like spider webs everywhere, Konoba Ribar has a cosy rustic feel. The friendly owner sort of mothers you. It’s unfussily comfy.

On the Menu: Very traditional Croatian fare with a mix of meat and seafood dishes. Nothing was fancy, or strayed from the beaten trad food path but seafood risotto, cevapi (grilled sausage like kebabs) and calamari were all tasty, wholesome fare. The cevapi came with a spicy, chunky sauce whilst the calamari was the way I like it – with tentacles. I’m always suspicious of calamari that only comes in neat rings. The house wine was perfectly quaffable.

The View: None to speak of, but the sea and sunset views are right across the road.

Wallet Friendly Rating: Cheap and cheerful; the wallet liked it.

Why Eat Here? It’s simply good value, tasty Croatian comfort food in a friendly konoba.

Where? Obala IV 5, Vela Luka – heading away from the centre of town, the restaurant is just along the road from Hotel Korkyra.

Jack is co-editor, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to online travel sites and travel magazines. Follow Jack on Google+

The trouble with Croatia is that every island is beautiful. Nearly every town is picturesque to the point it hurts your eyes, with a harbour lapped by water that is clearer than the stuff that comes out of your tap just to pile on the pleasure.

Vela Luka, although surrounded by pine fig and olive trees and enclosed in a calm inlet, doesn’t quite have the same quaint good looks as the overly busy Korcula Town on the other side of the island. It feels more workaday. In most places that wouldn’t matter. In Croatia, it doesn’t feel quite as charming as some other places we’ve stayed like Hvar Town and Krk.

But then it does boast a far more stylish hotel than a lot of places.

Our View
The Hotel Korkyra is one of the best hotels we stayed at in Croatia; elegant, stylish and comfortable. It rained almost constantly during our visit to Vela Luka and Korcula which didn’t help either the town or the island’s cause. The rain meant we were either trapped in a local bar – no hardship and there are a couple of decent ones – or scampering through the hills trying to get back to civilisation before we were totally drenched (unsuccessful). In short, we didn’t see the place at its best. Yet the Hotel Korkyra made our stay pleasantly comfortable. If you’re going to be confined to barracks because of the weather there are a lot worse places to have to spend your time.

Rooms

Sexy, silver and white walls with sleek curtains and bedding to match – bedrooms are modernly minimalist but with colonial touches, like the louvre shutters that open onto a view of palm trees and the bay. They are a cool and comfortable base to relax after exploring Korcula. The bathroom is equally contemporary, oozing style like the rest of the hotel. All 58 rooms have a television, mini-bar and hairdryer. The website also says there is internet access. For wifi we had to use the lounge area.

Facilities

The hotel has its own pool set in an inner courtyard but we didn’t get to use it thanks to the weather. Even better sounding is the hotel’s own beach, Azzurro, which is across the bay and is reached by a boat organised by the hotel. The boat ride takes 5 minutes and the boat travels every half hour. There are sunbeds and a restaurant at the beach. What it’s actually like we can’t say because of… you’ve guessed it… the weather.

Breakfast was a buffet affair which felt slightly resorty even though the restaurant is as elegant as the rest of the hotel (the puffball lights are particularly interesting). The food was decent enough but best was the option to have certain items freshly cooked to order. Dinner is also served in the dining room but we preferred to ‘pop’ next door to Restaurant Ribar which was a really friendly restaurant serving good local cuisine at very reasonable prices. There are a few restaurants dotted around the bay.
The Hotel Korkyra has an attractive bar but during the afternoon it proved a bit difficult to get served in it. There’s also a small gym and wellness area with good views over the town and surrounding islands.

We liked the Hotel Korkyra a lot and would certainly recommend it. Vela Luka might not be as pretty as Korcula Town but it is a far more relaxing place, feels less touristy and you can park easily.

Hotel Korkyra; Obala,3; Vela Luka; tel: +385 (0)21 601 000; double rooms with breakfast cost from around €90 per night.

Jack is co-owner, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to online travel sites and travel magazines. Follow Jack on Google+

Croatia just happens to be one of those places that is beautiful whatever the light is doing.

Chilling in Hvar Town

Some folks are divided about Hvar Town’s charms. It does cater for the yachting scene but in May at least there’s quite a laid back sophisticated vibe going on… even if Sex Bomb is blasting out of a seafront bar. Its overwhelming prettiness acts as an antidote to dodgy music.

Cool Korcula

We didn’t have the best weather in Korcula and Vela Luka didn’t seduce us in the same way as the other places we visited in Croatia. But the sunset was hypnotic, turning everything an aloof metallic silver before softening into midnight blue.

Golden Krk

Krk Town at night looked as though Midas had touched it; the old town is a maze of enticing narrow alleys and cobbled streets.

Being Seen in Zadar’s Bar Scene

Being a university city, Zadar has a great bar scene set around a network of narrow old streets. It’s clear from the position of the seats and benches that they’re ideal for people watching… or even dog watching by the looks of it. And if anyone is wondering why no mention of the famous sunset, it’s because sunset in Zadar deserved a blog to itself.

Magnificent Mljet

Simply one of those locations that has you sighing blissfully whatever the time of day or night it is.

Dubrovnik After Dark

Relax, after nightfall you don’t have to breathe in to squeeze through the cruise excursions who storm the old town during the day. When it comes to appearance Dubrovnik by night is like Dubrovnik by day – exquisite looking.

Jack is co-owner, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to lots of other places. Follow Jack on Google+