Do you want to escape the British winter? Are you keen to jet off abroad to enjoy some much-needed sunshine?

I booked a holiday! Well that's how it started out anyway.

I tried taking a break last year but after 3 days on the South Wales Coast I was bored and went home early and most of those three days were spent gear testing for reviews. It's one of the dangers of being an outdoors journalist; you holiday doing the same things you spend your time writing about and inevitably you take photos. Photos become write ups and suddenly your holiday is just work in a different place. It happened back in 2005 when Stu Thomas, now our Cycling Editor, and I decided to holiday in MacGillcuddy's Reeks and were joined by Jake Meyer and it's a formula that's repeated itself ever since.

Sat between the Thun and Brienz Lakes, the town of Interlaken looks small and remote on the map; a town of just 5000 people close to the centre of this mountainous country but for the adventure seeker and adrenaline junkie it's a worldwide magnet in a chocolate box setting.

Some time, long ago, so the legend has it, a young lady from a nunnery above Interlaken ventured onto the hills and attracted the attention of an ogre living on a neighbouring hill. To protect the nun from the ogre a monk climbed the mountain between them to stand in its way. And so the names of the Jungfrau (young woman) Monch (monk) and Eiger (ogre) were born.

It's impossible to mention the name Zermatt without thoughts immediately turning to the Matterhorn, the iconic "Toblerone mountain" that defines the town. Supported by Switzerland Tourism and Zermatt Tourism we continued our annual series of long-weekend autumn alpine adventure tours to possibly the most English of Swiss towns to see just how much fun you can pack into 3 days.

One of the great joys of adventure is the planning process; all the possible scenarios running through your mind and the anticipation rising. Unfortunately, however, in Britain the weather seldom plays along with even our best made plans. A week of planned warm weather can dissipate into isolated days at any time of the year but in spring, in particular, you're often better off planning a smash and grab raid on adventure when the sun shines. If you're looking for something new, though, you're in the right place in Britain with a whole catalogue of adventures you can sample in a day. Whether you want to try out a potential new hobby or just step outside your comfort zone for a day the adventure industry has been quietly adding new and exciting adventures around the country that you can sample in a day.

I love the Tour de France but as a spectator sport road cycling is rubbish. On the television it looks amazing as the roads are lined with spectators waving flags, cheering on their favourite riders and taking selfies. Who can forget the scenes in Yorkshire last year as thousands attended the biggest free sporting event in the world but what you don’t see on the box is the real truth.

In a follow up to the article The MyOutdoors Guide to Chamonix between the seasons from Dave and James, one of our Mountaineering Team, Alan 'Tosh' McIntosh and his wife Sam, headed for the Alps earlier this year. Alan describes how they developed their Alpinism skills from Ice Climbing to Snowshoeing to an Introduction to Skiing with details of the areas they visited and some costs associated with their experiences.

For our second tour we decided to finish where we set off the previous year. So Ljubljana would be the final destination. After a quick look for cheap flights to a feasible starting point we booked for Budapest. I love Hungary, I love the food, the wine and even have a tattoo to show for a previous trip. So excited and hopefully learning from the mistakes of the year before we packed our bikes and flew to the Hungarian capital. Opening the bike bags though the trip looked over before it had even began.

The second day the weather was slightly better. Well it had stopped raining anyway, but the sky was grey and it was a little chilly. When we told our host of our plans to cycle to Dubrovnik he said “no very dangerous stay here” but being naïve and brave we said we’d ride on, so we departed towards the harbour for an espresso before the ride south. Then I got my front wheel stuck in some tram tracks and the journey was nearly over.