New York

Originally, if you gave someone "six of the best", you punished them by hitting them, usually on their bottom with a long, thin stick. Today, the expression has a much more positive meaning, especially when it comes to our travel tips.

The city that never sleeps expects that the number of visitors this year could top the record 47 million who came in 2008. To cope with the crowds, lots of new budget hotels offering tourist-friendly rates of $200 to $250 have opened their doors.

A New York hotel has created a new travel niche: birth tourism. The Marmara Manhattan offers "an exclusive package for new mothers who wish to give birth in the USA," with the additional bonus of the newborn child getting US citizenship.

Bukhari has more speakers in Queens than in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan. Other rare languages spoken in New York include Aramaic, Chaldic and Mandaic. You can hear Chamorro (from the Mariana Islands) and Rhaeto-Romanic (from Switzerland) in Brooklyn.

You're in Delhi and would like to spend an afternoon at the Taj Mahal. No problem. You can be in Agra in an hour thanks to Greaves, a specialist travel company, which has invested in a Super King Air B200 plane. This is how the rich travel.

One of the most notable features of 200 West Street is the Sky Lobby on the 11th floor. Flooded with light from a glass ceiling, this huge space houses conference rooms, an employee gym and a cafeteria where baristas serve pastries and lattes.

Most of us didn't know that volcanic ash could cause airplanes to crash. And we didn't know that there were volcanoes in Iceland capable of sending so much of that ash into the atmosphere. But now we know how to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull.

"There is but one night a year in New York to revel in Scottish fashion, and it is called Dressed to Kilt. And oh, what a night it is! The evening allows the stars, who stud the runway, to showcase their personas as much as the couture." — Vanity Fair