Travellers' checks

Guests staying at the Mandarin Oriental Pudong Shanghai, which opened last year, are being offered a complimentary sunset cruise on a luxury yacht on the Huangpu River (above), complete with butler service. The 45-minute cruise, which is offered in partnership with the new Shanghai Metropolitan Marine Yacht Club, is available to guests staying in Pear Tower Suite accommodation and above (see all 10 types of suites at www.mandarinoriental.com/shanghai).

Europe's oldest luxury hotel group (established in 1897), Kempinski is also looking like the most adventurous, with openings over the past decade in Ulan Bator, N'Djamena and Djibouti. The company will add to its portfolio of relatively obscure African locations in the next few weeks, when the Hotel des Mille Collines, in Kigali, Rwanda, reopens as a Kempinski property. This hotel was famously the setting of the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda, which starred Don Cheadle as the heroic acting general manager Paul Rusesabagina, a man who saved the lives of more than 1,200 people during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The hotel was opened in 1974 by Belgian national carrier Sabena (now defunct), which built the first of its African hotels in the 1930s in what is now Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Coincidentally, Kempinski opened the Kempinski Fleuve Congo Hotel in Kinshasa last month, in what was the much-maligned, and Chinese-owned and built, Fleuve Congo Hotel. Anyone looking for five-star comfort in exotic locations will find plenty to choose from at www.kempinski.com.

Perhaps inspired by the westward-rolling covered wagons of the 19th century, American travellers have a great fondness for making the road their home for a week or two every year. They venture forth in large and very comfortable motor homes, otherwise known as recreational vehicles, or RVs. These vehicles became popular in the mid-60s, when Winnebago Industries began producing affordable models, and in Winnebago Nation: The Peculiar Place of the RV in American Culture author James B. Twitchell reflects on that popularity. Published this month by Columbia University Press, the book explores "the RV's origins and … its rise, fall, and rebirth as a cultural icon". Described by one reviewer as containing "a winning combination of Bill Bryson's dry wit and Mary Roach's eye for the absurd", Winnebago Nation is available from amazon.com in both hardcover and Kindle editions.

There are a couple of dozen hotels featured in Tiglion Travel's Singapore promotion, the cheapest being the Ibis Novena, where you can stay for two nights, with round-trip, economy class Cathay Pacific flights included, from HK$2,890. This property gets mostly "very good" reviews at TripAdvisor, and offers free Wi-fi. Other properties worth a look are the historic Goodwood Park Hotel, an interesting alternative to Raffles, from HK$3,590 and the Shangri-La (above), where deluxe rooms in the Tower Wing are offered from HK$3,690. These prices will be available throughout June, with some surcharges for weekday stays during certain periods. To book, go to www.tiglion.com or call 2511 7189 and quote Package ID 4087.