Rachna Bisht-Rawat takes a stroll through the town where Shakespeare attended grammar school, roamed the woods to poach rabbits and steal fruits.

When you’re reading William Shakespeare you except a few ghosts here and there – be it Banquo in Macbeth or Hamlet’s dead father in Hamlet. They flit around in the mist and pop out of the pages of his famous plays, speaking of evil machination and ugly murders and leading the characters and the reader to where the action is. Not surprising then that outside the public library on Henley Street, Stratford (Shakespeare’s place of birth) a ghostly apparition in white stands still on a pedestal marked William Shakespeare. When you decide it is just a statue, he nods his head curtly in greeting causing the air to ring out with the shrieks of startled tourists.

The Marwaris of Rajasthan have left behind a unique art legacy unlike any other in the world.

Take a small detour from the famous Spice Route into a relatively undiscovered part of rural Rajasthan and one of the world’s few open-air art galleries. Painted houses stand faded like old painted ladies. Their stately presence, battered shutters and pigeon-filled lofts disguise an ancient beauty now fading into a red-tinged sunset.

Located in the heart of the Pacific Ocean, Big Island, Hawaii, is the perfect destination to relax, unwind and have some great fun for the young and the old alike.

The Big Island, as the name suggests, is the largest of the eight Hawaiian islands and is a mélange of pristine beaches, lush greenery with plenty of coconut trees, volcanoes, icy mountains, waterfalls, friendly people and a rich cultural history.

Hawaiians, clad in Hawaiian shirts (for men and women) and Sarongs, (for women) welcome visitors with the word ‘Aloha’, which translates into a warm ‘Hello’ in English, as soon as they arrive at the Kona airport. One is immediately struck by the old world charm and rusticity this airport has retained, when compared to the swank airports in other parts of the United States of America.

A weekend on Poland’s mountains can be an arduous task at 20 degrees below zero, but a snowboarding (or snurfing) trip with longtime friends can be an exhilarating experience too. Two of my best friends from boarding school, Ellen and Amer, arrive in Poznan on December 26 morning. We are quite a mix of nationality, Ellen is from Belgium and Amer is from the USA. We haven’t seen each other for the past eight years, that is, since we graduated from college

Ellen landed in Wroclaw the evening before, she had to take a train connection to reach Poznan. She was shocked with the amount of homeless people staying at the Wrocal train station, and tells me she didn’t expect to see such poverty in an European Union member state.