Spring is coming, washing like a slow sunrise up over the continent of Europe. First the coves and coasts from Cyprus to the Canaries, then the still-empty beaches of mainland Spain and piazzas of Italy, and, finally, the green shoots and new leaves emerge after the long, cold winter of the industrial north. To really experience spring, you need to be somewhere which, as the locals say, ‘has real seasons’. Which is why I’ll be heading to Kazakhstan: this dramatic country, the size of western Europe and spanning from China to the Caspian, embraces Himalayan mountains, Alpine pastures and lakes, interminable forest, steppe, desert and virtually everything in between. And as icy winter breaks, the hillsides are carpeted with wildflowers and smell of renewal and life: it’s a true adventure for the soul. The peerless operator Black Tomato can take you riding on the silk route and clubbing in Kazakhstan’s cosmopolitan main city Almaty this year, check it out on blacktomato.com
If you can’t head quite that far afield, spring holds plenty of traveller’s joy - even if it’s just the planning of this year’s muchneeded summer holiday. The Persians are right on this one: March 21, the first day of spring, is the first day of the new, regenerated year. May we all travel our way out of the recession

POLYNESIAN PARADISE

Planning a working holiday this year - you know, the kind of trip where you spend half the time chilling in the sun and the other half in a kind of BlackBerry/laptop mania? I can recommend nowhere better for this than the Four Seasons Resort in Bora Bora, French Polynesia. When you’re tuned out, you can barely imagine you’re on planet earth, so blue is the sea, so unworldly are the coral beaches and volcanic mountains all around: you might well spot a turtle swimming under your suite-on-stilts. But for those tuned-in times, there’s no better operator than Four Seasons, so you have Wi-Fi in your Robinson Crusoe suite-hut and every conceivable business service, short perhaps of a local translator who speaks Finnish. In fact, why not just move your office there and stay forever? Fourseasons.com/borabora

KEEP YOUR RESERVE IN RAMATUELLE

I love Ramatuelle; a little village just outside St Trop, it benefits from having none of the town’s traffic, a populace of chi-chi people staying in the local villas, and it’s a short hop to the area’s most gorgeous beach, Pampelonne (where you’ll find Nikki Beach, Club 55 et al). And it’s just about to get the hotel it deserves: La Reserve is a chic country retreat, with 12 villas and just 23 rooms, a cosy restaurant and a Provencal spa that’s only for residents. And the restaurant’s menu will be big on grilled local fish and vegetables, to help you stay in tip-top shape for dancing on the table at La Voile Rouge (or under the table at Les Caves du Roy). Opens in June.
Lareserveramatuelle.com

SIXTH SENSE IN JORDAN

The Six Senses group operate some of the world’s most beautiful and holistic spa hotels, but they are all a rather long way away - Thailand, the Maldives and other such wonderful long-haul hops. So it’s jolly nice of them to have opened up closer to home, with the new Evason Ma’In Hot Springs, amid the rocky outcrops by the Dead Sea in Jordan. It’s all very carefully integrated with the surroundings: in the restaurant you sit on giant cushions on the floor, and the outdoor spa treatments by the hot springs have to be seen to be believed. Sixsenses.com; book through kuoni.co.uk

ALL ABOARD

It’s customary for Brits to complain about our train services, often with justification. But there is an upside, particularly if you book early. Buy tickets now for the summer and you’ll find yourself whisked from central London to the rolling, rural, gorgeous heart of Devon, in First Class comfort, for a song and in just over two hours. Devon seems a world away, amazing to get to with no airports or traffic jams, and once you try it, you’ll never drive to the West Country again. firstgreatwestern.co.uk