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Six tempting ways to blow your savings
Chris Carter looks at some of the most extravagant ways to blow your savings – should you be leaning that way.
Why not get together 11 friends and charter the "exceptionally elegant" Axioma?
(Image credit: Superyacht Media)
The flexibility of an Isa makes them a great way to save for a special occasion or the trip of a lifetime.
Quite a few of you are using your Isas to save up for a holiday according to our reader survey. Perhaps you have a bit of spare cash left over after paying the school fees or you've managed to build up a small fortune. Either way, here are six trips for the well-heeled.
(Image credit: guillaume de laubier)
Head to Paris for lunch
The Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris has upped the ante this year, says Larry Olmsted on Forbes.com. That's because the hotel's two newest restaurants, Le George and L'Orangerie, were awarded a Michelin star each in the 2017 guide, joining Le Cinq, which was "belatedly" elevated from two to three Michelin stars last year.
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Join more than 165,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with latest financial news, insights and expert analysis to help you understand what really matters when it comes to your finances.
Join more than 165,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with latest financial news, insights and expert analysis to help you understand what really matters when it comes to your finances.
The George V is the only hotel in Europe to house three Michelin-starred restaurants not to mention the many other awards the restaurants have picked up along the way, such as best sommelier in Europe, and a rating of 19 out of 20 for Le Cinq in the 2016 Gault & Millau Guide, "besting every other Paris eatery". Executive chef Christian Le Squer's food is "inventive, experimental and theatrical", says The Times. A four-course lunch will set you back€145.
If you have ever dreamed of living like an A-lister, dream no more. Leonardo DiCaprio's "Titantic-sized" Palm Springs mansion in California, 432 Hermosa (432Hermosa.com), is available to rent though at £3,000 a night, "you'll need a wallet to rival the Wolf of Wall Street", says The Mail on Sunday.DiCaprio's pad, designed by architect Donald Wexler in 1964, has six bedrooms, a heated pool and a spa, a one-bedroom guesthouse, and a tennis court.
Alternatively, you could stay chez Bruce Willis at the actor's Caribbean retreat, The Residence, in the Turks and Caicos islands, which forms part of the Como Parrot Cay resort. The five-bedroom main house, guest villas and palm-fringed pool costs £6,490 a night.
Fans of Duck and Waffle, the hip 24-hour restaurant atop Heron Tower in the City, can now enjoy the same breakfast of shakshuka with harissa yogurt and mint on the slopes of Val d'Isre thanks to luxury chalet operator Consensio, which has teamed up with the restaurant.
Despite being up in the French Alps, "Consensio's chefs aim to use only the finest ingredients, sourcing local and seasonal products from markets and farms wherever possible" and the chalets are "beautifully designed", says Codelia Mantsebo in Spear's. Chalet Calistoga, for instance, which costs £17,500 a week and can sleep ten, has floor-to-ceiling windows offering panoramic views over the slopes and a spa for "reviving weary muscles after a hard day's ski".
Manhattan's most luxurious new suite
"What can $19,000 buy you in New York City? A single night in Manhattan's most luxurious new suite," says Jackie Caradonio in the Robb Report. The Fifth Avenue suite, unveiled last autumn at the "legendary" Peninsula New York hotel, is "more grand apartment than hotel accommodation".
High up on the 17th floor, it "has everything a modern New Yorker needs" from a sprawling living room to "a gourmet kitchen for your personal chef", as well as "views that seem to go on forever". Look down and you see "virtually all of Manhattan's famous shopping avenue unfolding before you". The room rate includes use of a Mini Cooper, but you may prefer to stay put and crack open the inclusive bottle of Dom Prignon to "enjoy every penny".
A trip to the South Pole
White Desert has been bringing intrepid travellers to Antarctica for ten years. It is the only hotel on the world's loneliest landmass, but the luxury accommodation includes a lounge, library, bar, dining room and six state-of-the-art sleeping pods with en suite bathrooms. Guests can make the most of the 24-hours of sunlight in the summer to go kiteskiing, hitting speeds of up to 25mph. In November, White Desert's nine-night Emperors and South Pole trip at€68,000 per person calls in on the continent's colony of 6,000 emperor penguins and includes a flight to the South Pole.
Why not get together 11 friends and charter the "exceptionally elegant" Axioma?
(Image credit: Superyacht Media)
Luxury on the high seas
"There is no more extravagant, costly way to holiday" than by booking a passage aboard the superyacht Axioma, says John O'Ceallaigh in The Sunday Telegraph. The 236-foot vessel, with a crew of 20 looking after 12 guests, is "exceptionally elegant", boasting a pool, Jacuzzi and spa, a 3D cinema, a three-storey inflatable water slide and "a battalion of toys" that includes jet skis and Seabobs, a type of water sled. This doesn't come cheap: one week's charter through Yachting Partners International costs€635,000 during the high season in winter, excluding food, drink, fuel and tipping 10% of the charter price is considered a normal gratuity.
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