Travel with Katie Butler: New Happy Valley themed staycation

Katie Butler writes: The earthquake struck last Monday destroying many buildings and taking thousands of lives, with tremors reported as far away as Cyprus and Lebanon.

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), updated its travel advice later that morning to confirm that 10 provinces in the south east of Turkey had been hit.

The Foreign Office said: "There have been several strong after-shocks and the Turkish government has announced its highest level of state emergency.”

The affected region is close to the border with Syria and away from tourist areas.

Of course, Turkey is a huge country and we have taken many calls from concerned customers.

If you are booked to travel to the tourist regions of Turkey for a holiday we can confirm that no flights or package holidays from the UK to Turkey have been cancelled, according to tour operators and airlines.

The earthquake hit the south east of Turkey. The sunshine holiday resorts where thousands of us venture to every year are in the south west, hundreds of miles away from the epicentre of the quake.

It was a busy week for the FCDO last week with several differing alerts relating to various parts of the world.

The UK Foreign Office updated its advice to Kenya after the US Embassy issued a new terror alert. In light of the US alert, the FCDO said: “British nationals are advised to be extremely vigilant."

On lighter updates the UK Foreign Office also updated its advice on Spain to say the country no longer requires face masks to be worn on public transport.

Face coverings on public transport have remained mandatory in Spain and the Health Minister for Spain, Carolina Darias said: “We are following the roadmap that we planned to return to normality.”

Last week much of our region were talking “Happy Valley”, the much loved Yorkshire crime drama. With every great TV programme there tends to follow a “themed break” and last week National Holidays launched their five day Yorkshire’s Happy Valley and Bronte Steam Tour.

The tour includes a visit to some of the most notable filming locations, including Hebden Bridge, Upper Calder Valley, Sowerby Bridge and Halifax.

Tours depart on selected dates throughout the summer and cost from £339 per person including four nights accommodation with breakfast and dinner, coach travel from several locations and the Happy Valley locations excursion, amongst other trips.

All bookable through most independent travel agents.

The early summer season is remaining extremely strong, so much so that Jet2 and Jet2 holidays have added even more capacity to Majorca and Tenerife for Easter and the following months, including additional seats from Leeds Bradford.

Our own top selling destination is Tenerife with Majorca and Turkey close on its heels.