Travel

Once known as the land of kitsch, neon and 24-hour gambling, Las Vegas today is so much more. MailOnline Travel's Valerie Siebert found that 60 years after Elvis Presley (inset with Liberace) performed his very first residency in the city's New Frontier Hotel, Sin City is actually a place full of class that has less use for the likes of The King or, in fact, gambling than it ever has before. Pictured left is Vegas in 1953, just before Elvis' residency, and right is Vegas today - completely transformed.

At some restaurants it's not just delicious food and highly quaffable wine that's on the menu. Some have views that are just as eye-catching as their dishes and drinks list. From The Rainbow Room in New York boasting a sublime panorama of the Empire State Building, to the Aroma in Rome looking over the floodlit Colosseum, there are dozens of settings to choose from. For city slickers, there are sky-high eateries looking down on the world below, and for those looking for something a bit more rural there are dinner tables looking out over the ocean or the African plains. In a bid to help you make the winning choice, MailOnline Travel has put together a directory of some of the best restaurant views in the world.

The H.K. Ship Art Club is proposing the transformation of a 60,000 tonne cruise ship into a floating cemetery that will be stationed in Hong Kong and it will come with enough room for 48,000 funeral urns. But, extraordinarily, the vessel will also operate as a hotel and offer a range of services typically associated with cruises, including restaurants, gyms and even a cinema.

Rescue workers in Benalmadena, near the Spanish province of Malaga, say a giant water mains burst sending hundreds of thousands of gallons of water into the air. The blast of the fracture was so strong, reports local media, that shock waves could be seen off the coast in the sea.

The Dream Jet (inset) has been converted by US firm Kestrel Aviation Management from a Boeing 787 Dreamliner to a private jet capable of carrying up to 40 passengers for 17 hours without stopping. They will be in the lap of luxury. There's a sprawling entertainment area and convertible dining table (top left and right), plus a master bedroom with walk-in wardrobe (bottom right) and en-suite bathroom (bottom left).

For many people, autumn marks the most beautiful season of the year, as evidenced in these photos captured as the trees shed their leaves in Britain, Tuscany, Canada and beyond. Pictured (main) a forest pathway shrouded with fiery leaves in Derbyshire, (bottom right) a pair of hedgehogs nestled together in a German park and (bottom left) Scotland's Loch Ard in the early morning fog.

Andrew Studer, 20, from Portland, Oregon, has travelled the world to capture solo voyagers deep in the vast wilderness of places like Washington (top left), Oregon (top right and bottom left), and Iceland (bottom right and inset). With his photos, he is aiming to demonstrate the earth's prowess, and what 'small fish in a big, big pond' we are.

An austere brick tower built to defend Britain during the Napoleonic Wars before being left derelict for 150 years has been transformed into a luxury holiday let. The 30-foot-high miniature fort was erected to overlook Suffolk’s shoreline in 1808 along with 102 others on the east coast in a bid to ward off any potential French invasion. But now - thanks to a ten-year renovation - it is a three-bedroom contemporary property being marketed as a bolt-hole for holidaymakers who pay up to £3,500 a week. Marketed on the website, Unique Home Stays, the rental is described as a 'unique escape like no other'. Highlights include a stylish roof terrace - once laden with heavy artillery - a cosy fireplace, a sweeping spiral staircase and an upper level, where floor-to-ceiling windows provide 360-degree views of the wild Suffolk coastline.

A rather plump cat who found fame after a photo of him 'chilling out' swept the web, has had a statue erected in his honor. Tombili from Istanbul, who passed away in August, was apparently known for lounging on the curb with his belly hanging out and his front paw up. And now, a statue has been installed in the feline's favourite spot, with his chilled-out pose captured for posterity. Many fans of Tombili have applauded the piece of art, while others are less keen on it.

Lonely Planet's new edition of its voyage bible, The Travel Book, is extremely heavy - but that should come as no surprise, because it's laden with descriptions and facts for every country in the world and is stunningly furnished with more than 800 photographs. These spectacular images capture the unique essence of exotic travel destinations around the world. The book's odyssey starts in Afghanistan and circumnavigates the globe from A to Z, ending with Zimbabwe, and visiting every single country in between, from Norway's Geirangerfjord and Seven Sisters waterfall (top), to the seascapes of New Zealand (bottom left) and the mountains of Turkey (bottom right).

There are more dead people buried under the pavements of Savannah than there are living people walking on top. For all its pretty cobblestoned squares and antebellum townhouses, the exquisite seafood and Southern generosity, this small port on the frontier of Georgia and South Carolina has a dark underbelly: grisly tales of sordid murder, haunted houses and a colonial-era graveyard (inset) decorated with the lingering entrails of Spanish moss. Savannah could well claim to be America’s most haunted city. That’s why, this Thursday evening, I’m being driven round its deserted squares in the back of a hearse.

Anthony Killen, a Brit who was on his first skydive with an instructor over New Zealand's Bay of Islands, was 'laughing and ecstatic' when they spotted the technicolour spectrum. While actually witnessing this sight is a freak occurrence, the formation itself is not. All rainbows in their complete form are circular, we just can't see them from the ground, or from anywhere other than directly over them.

The 816 Nuclear Military Plant, located in the mountains of Fuling district in China's Chongqing municipality, was designed to manufacture plutonium in the 1960s, but never went into operation. It covers 1.1 million square feet, with more than 130 roads and tunnels (left) as well as educational light displays (top and bottom right).

Stretching from floor-to-ceiling these incredible ice stalactites look particularly eerie as they shine from the darkness and protrude from a cavern of red rock. The unusual frozen formations were captured by intrepid caver, Peter Gedei, at the Ivacic Cave hidden under the highest peak in Slovenia, Triglav. During his recent expedition, he also discovered a thick frozen bed of water which he said shone in 'beautiful colourful layers' when it was lit.

MailOnline Travel's Rebecca Seales saw summer go out in a blaze of glory in blissful Boston. And beyond the reds, russets, and gold, this classy city offers cosy shopping boutiques, great restaurants, imposing museums, and – for sports fans – top-flight baseball care of the Red Sox.

A new book, Tiny Churches, by intrepid traveller Dixe Wills, explores the fascinating and varied histories of 60 of the country's most diminutive churches, from the church in Wiltshire so small the congregation sit outside to the chapel balanced halfway down a remote Pembrokeshire cliff. MailOnline Travel has rounded up a selection of some of the most beguiling churches featured in the book.

Stepping into a steamy pool of water with the Swiss mountains visible in the cloudy twilight - this is the scene captured in a new video which has swiftly gone viral. Entitled Stairway to Heaven, the 39-second-long clip shows a woman getting into the infinity pool at the five-star Hotel Villa Honegg in Switzerland. The aquamarine waters seemingly have no end, as they run over an invisible edge to make way for sweeping views of the valley below. Towards the end of the video, a shot from high up reveals there is also a hot tub in the corner of the L-shaped pool.

Bats rule the roost when it comes to caves, ducking and diving through their dank dwellings. And now new drone footage attempts to mimic a bat's point of view, taking viewers inside the eerie Devetashka cave in Bulgaria that was inhabited as far back as 70,000 years ago, but is now home to around 30,000 bats. Footage captured by a YouTube channel reveals a giant cavern with large holes punctuating the length of it. At one point the camera steadily hovers along a dirt walkway. The lens then circles around to give a near-360-degree view of the 100ft-high craggy ceilings. Later the camera swoops down to foot level, narrowly missing some inky puddles as it grazes the floor. It then continues to fly, revealing a small stream of water running through the cave down below.

Unicorns might be the things of dreams but this certainly isn't - a pink cafe dedicated to the mythical beasts. The Unicorn Cafe in Bangkok, Thailand, features a psychedelic mix of furnishings, from rainbow-coloured carpeting to Barbie-pink armchairs. Taking things to an even more mystical level is the food menu - which features rainbow-coloured strands of carbonara and a volcano-shaped creation named 'spaghetti meatball lava cheese'.

Peeled paint, crumbling brickwork and rotten timbers are a common theme in this striking photo series, which unearths abandoned buildings across the UK. Simon Yeung makes it his mission to highlight the beauty of decay through photography, capturing dilapidated train stations, hotels, churches, mansions and hospitals on his travels. He says he finds it 'tragic' how scores of buildings are left to crumble and rot, but he understands how the money needed to save them from peril is often too much. In a bid to get the desired shots, Yeung admits that he often puts himself in dangerous situations as he ventures into structures on the verge of collapse.

From a Morrisons sign reading 'Morons' to a Starbucks Coffee banner announcing 'Sucks Coffee', these are an example of the unfortunate spelling errors that can occur when neon signs malfunction. Amused bystanders from around the world have been busy sharing some of the most hilarious - and sometimes rude - neon sign fails they've encountered. Indeed, Instagram user @cawsin from Vancouver said he had to stop the car and take a photo when he spotted a burned-out sign for the pharmaceutical company London Drugs mistakenly reading 'ON DRUGS.' And it's clear that one passerby had a giggle after spotting a sign for the Ortiz Funeral Home in New York wrongly reading 'ORTIZ FUN HOUSE.' But there are dozens more to have a chuckle at. Here MailOnline Travel reveals some of the most comical neon sign fails around...

Rowing across the Venetian lagoon after a thunderous storm raged had an eerie feel. And exploring some of the hundreds of islands slowly sinking into the murky waters proved to be an even eerier experience. Tumbled down quarantine stations dating back to the Black Death, mental asylums and old monasteries where Casanova would apparently have his pick of nuns, were some of the spots we encountered as we sailed around. Poveglia - believed to be of the world's most haunted locations - was our first port of call. Pictured top left, right and centre is Poveglia, pictured bottom left, 16th-century graffiti from shipping merchants at Lazzaretto Vecchio, and bottom right, views over the plague pit at the museum island.