Liz Light walks the Great Rann of Kutch.

In a style that acknowledges the extravagant comforts of early 20th-century travel, Sarah Marshall sips prosecco on a train trip from Bangkok to Vientiane.

In Dubai, Peter Calder looks on enviously as the well-heeled browse among $12,000 bottles of wine.

Thirty years after he fell in love with Japan, author Edmund de Waal returns to take his family on an intense tour of its urban and rural charms.

Gayle Dickson stays at The Chedi Muscat, Oman.

Weird adventures with mushrooms and a winery visit are unexpected surprises for Pamela Wade in Thailand.

An absent millionaire's place can be your home away from home, writes Tamara McLean.

On the island of Maafushivaru, in the Maldives, Sam Wylie-Harris and her husband savour a holiday befitting a king and queen.

Turkey's largest city is a place of grandeur and contradiction, writes Nicola Lamb.

Modern history is a presence in Turkey that confronts visitors, writes Brett Atkinson. For Kiwis, though, the welcome is always warm.

A couple and their toddler who survived the crash of a TransAsia Airways plane in Taiwan changed seats just before the plane took off.

"This pilot decided to land in a narrow river without buildings because there is a residential area nearby. He did all he could do."

Katelyn Catanzariti enjoys Thailand far more now than she did as a backpacker.

Malaysian officials finally call disappearance of the aircraft an "accident". But this means that there are many things we will - probably - never know.

In the midst of one of the world's greatest metropolises, Sarah MacDonald goes on a quest for the ultimate urban sanctuary - Tokyo's natural hot spring.

The hunt for the man-eating Komodo, writes Rachel Williams, makes for one heart-stopping cruise excursion.

Vo Van Duong's bamboo and coconut leaf house looks much like others deep in Vietnam's Mekong Delta.

So far, a good number of Chinese families have been less than enthusiastic about the partial relaxation of the one-child policy. Why?

Divers have retrieved a black box from the crashed AirAsia flight from the bottom of the Java Sea, officials say.

New Zealand is being urged by Thailand to revoke the passport of a Thai fugitive who has fled to this country.

AirAsia crash victim's family learned of their loved one's fate after being sent a selfie he featured in, taken on board flight QZ8501 as it prepared for takeoff.

The first official Indonesian report on the AirAsia crash says the accident was caused by "icing" that damaged the plane's engines - a finding experts immediately doubted.

The richest people on Earth got richer in 2014, adding US$92 billion ($118 billion) to their collective fortune in the face of falling energy prices and geopolitical turmoil incited by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Airbus has rushed two specialists to Jakarta to assist in the investigation of the disappeared A320 airliner operated by AirAsia, the budget carrier that rose from almost nothing in 2001 to be its biggest customer.

Mention Waikato and what usually first comes to mind are cow-filled paddocks, a long river and a university.

United States markets head into the last week of the year with a "Santa Claus rally" having lifted them to record highs, picking up momentum from outstanding GDP numbers in the world's biggest economy.

Follow the locals' instructions and this Unesco World Heritage-listed walking trail in the Kii Mountains could make your dreams come true, writes Kate Hodal.

New Zealand's eurocentric reference point in trade has been transformed in the past 20 years, writes Philip Burdon.

From slum tours to luxury high tea, Bhanu Bhatnagar offers an insider's guide to India's fascinating metropolis.

A Kiwi facing a charge of smuggling methamphetamine into Bali will need more than $100,000 to hire a lawyer specialising in cases punishable by death, an expert says.