Eibhlis Gale-Coleman

This is about the time when the January blues start to hit pretty hard. It’s dark at 4pm, you’ve got no money left after Christmas and winter feels like it’s dragging on forever. But we’re here to tell you that things are looking up, because 2025 is going to be a corker of a year for the UK.  It turns out that 2025 is going to be a bit of a big one, with a number of landmark occasions being celebrated across Britain. There’s Jane Austen’s 250th birthday in Southampton, as well as the art-packed Folkestone Triennial, a celebration of 200 years of the British railway in York and Bradford’s 2025 City of Culture festivities. Then, there are up-and-coming foodie towns in Cornwall, music scenes that are popping off in Cardiff and Belfast, and the reopening of grand cultural insitutions like the Tate Liverpool.  If there’s ever been a good time to book a trip, it’s now (it might even help keep some SAD at bay). There is so much fantastic stuff happening across the country this year, so read our list curated by local experts of the best places to visit in the UK in 2025, and get stuck in.  RECOMMENDED: 🇬🇧 The 25 best new things to do in the UK in 2025📍The 12 most underrated city breaks in the UK 🏨 The UK’s 13 best new hotels opening in 2025

What if I told you Santa is real? There’s an actual village with an elf-run post office, reindeer in neat little pens, and the white-bearded man we all know and love. It sits on the outskirts of the Christmas capital of the world: Rovaniemi, in Finnish Lapland. I’ve spent the past few winters visiting different regions in Lapland, but nothing quite compares to Rovaniemi's electric nostalgia. It’s a Peter Pan-esque bubble. Six-year-old me has stirred somewhere deep within, and she is triumphant, giggling at the foolishness of non-believers. Idiots. 🎄 Discover the world’s best places to go for Christmas The origins of Santa Claus Village Rovaniemi’s festive tourism origins date back to post-WW2 reinvestments in the city. After almost complete destruction, it was rebuilt with UN aid, and in 1950, America’s First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, announced a visit to admire its restored glory. With just two weeks’ notice, officials constructed a wooden cabin to surprise Roosevelt with an immersion into Arctic Circle life, and it went down a treat. From the 1980s onwards, Santa Claus Village grew around this original construction, and in 2010, the city copyrighted its title as the ‘Official Home of Santa Claus.’ The Roosevelt Cabin, the first building of the Arctic Circle | jremes84 / Shutterstock The branding worked. Every winter, hundreds of thousands of festive tourists flock here, eager to experience the world’s Christmas capital. ‘Tourism is growing by 10 percent each year,’ Sanna