SORREL DOWNER

Interview with Oscar Camps, humanitarian head of Proactiva Open Arms about his work saving the lives of many thousands of migrants in the Mediterranean.

Patient Innovation platform showcases extraordinary technology as well as simple solutions from patients incentivised to heal themselves.

Making cities smarter than even the people who live in them.

Price aside, eating at a one of the Basque country’s many Michelin-starred restaurants and sitting on a sea wall with a picnic have more in common than you’d imagine. The region’s greatest chefs – including Eneko Atxa, Elena Arzak, Andoni Luis Aduriz of Mugaritz, and Victor Arguinzoniz of Asador Etxebarri – all say the fertile land and seas, fresh produce, independent artisans (cheesemakers, winemakers, bakers), plus a culture with food at its heart, make for a transcendent gastronomic experi...

It’s just over 40 years ago that Spain emerged from itsgrim-faced isolation under the one-party state of General Franco. What followed was… a big party, which even the economic buffeting of the past decade still hasn’t quite managed to dampen down.
Spain has a unique history as a European tourist destination. For excitable northern visitors, it was a byword for wildness, colourful customs – and sexiness. ‘What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,’ Lord Byron wrote in the poem Don Juan, ‘Is ...

Italian director Sergio Leone had less than US$200,000 (HK$1.56 million) to make A Fistful of Dollars in 1964. He couldn’t afford to shoot in America or to hire big stars: so he opted for Almería, Spain, and hired Clint Eastwood, an actor in a fading TV Western series called Rawhide. Leone wasn’t the first European to make a Western in Almería’s Tabernas desert, in southern Spain, but he did it best. The wind-carved rocks, heat, light, cactuses, gullies and emptiness, plus fantastic sets crea...

Bilbao: Business City - a look at how new talent is incubated.

Seville city guide: what to do plus the best hotels...

With tropical rainforests that are home to two-thirds of the world’s animal and plant species, Costa Rica is nature’s paradise playground. But thanks to a surge of innovation, from technology start-ups to inventive chefs, it has plenty of urban appeal too. Journalist Sorrel Downer, who lived in the Central American nation for a number of years, reveals six reasons to visit the happiest country in the world
Fine grazing
Head to Costa Rica’s capital, San José, to discover its gastronomic hub Ba...

Young and upwardly mobile, Malaysia's capital is a Southeast Asian powerhouse with big ambitions for the 21st century.
The lowdown
Kuala Lumpur is a vibrant manifestation of Malaysia's recent growth, its glassy skyscrapers rising up all around, with more on the way. As a city with a stable economy, a lower cost of living than neighbouring Singapore, good business infrastructure and a welcoming twinkle, KL is attracting blue chip investors from both east (and Middle East) and west. And its lar...

We love plenty of nothing - FT.com

A goat farmer told me no one swims in the lake at Zahara de la Sierra because it’s full of fish with crocodile heads. Is that why I’m the only person in 128 sq km of cool water on a very hot day? I later learn that this manmade lake (embalse), the mountain ranges to the south of it, and the cliffs, gorges, flower meadows, forests and caves all around are simply, for the most part, empty. Spain has a surplus of staggeringly beautiful wild spaces, but this one – almost 54,000 hectares north-eas...

10 of the best hidden beaches in Ibiza | Travel | T...