A worker who swapped his British apartment for a five-star all-inclusive hotel in Turkey for a month – because he discovered it would be cheaper than his home life in Britain – said he had ‘lived a dream’ and could happily move there full time.

Josh Kerr, 24, spent 28 days in the Port River Hotel and Spa in Antalya on a trip that cost £944, compared to the £950 a month he pays in rent and bills at his Manchester apartment.

When he returned home on Saturday, he said he would trade his flat for permanent hotel accommodation if he could work abroad full-time, despite missing Bacon and Irn-Bru in Turkey.

During his stay, the creative strategist worked remotely from the hotel, logging onto his laptop in the ‘blinding sun’ and spending his lunch break with a dip in the pool, a game of table tennis or a stop at the beach for a game of football.

“It didn’t even feel real for the first few days,” he told MailOnline Travel.

‘It’s a premium way of life, for such a low cost. The fact that I didn’t have to cook anything for the past month was great. My apartment doesn’t have five swimming pools that I can take a dip in at lunchtime either. When I think about it, I have to go back to Turkey as soon as possible.’

Josh said he was ‘sad’ packing for his flight home on Saturday and didn’t want to leave the 20 degree Celsius weather after hearing the rain forecast in Manchester.

The first thing he did when he got home was ‘prepare a full English breakfast’, saying: ‘Pork isn’t served in Turkey so I definitely fancied a bit of bacon towards the end’.

However, he was anything but lacking in food at the resort, where breakfast, lunch and dinner were included in his stay.

“The all-inclusive was great, you could get whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted,” Josh said.

‘There were so many options that I kept changing what to eat every day.

The best part, though, was definitely the rotisserie chicken and gravy, which made me feel right at home.”

He has also adopted a local tradition that he hopes to continue at home.

“Wherever I go, I always try to embrace the local culture, and in Turkey it is culture to drink a Turkish tea after every meal,” he said.

‘By the end of our trip we were drinking that stuff more than the locals, it became part of our routine too. I’ve already started looking at Turkish teapots.’

Josh was invited for the trip through On the beach after he shared the price of a month’s hotel stay on TikTok, pointing out that it was cheaper than his rent.

Bosses at the online travel agency got in touch and challenged Josh to do it after his clip went viral, racking up more than a million views in 24 hours.

He checked in on February 17 and spent the weekend exploring the area before continuing his normal work routine from the hotel on weekdays.

Describing a typical day in a hotel, he said: ‘Every day started with breakfast, a glass of orange juice and then some eggs on toast was my habit.

‘But with Turkey being three hours ahead of Britain, I had so many options on how I would approach our day.

‘I had to work in the UK and the flexible time allowed me to start anytime between 7am and 9.30am, which meant we couldn’t start work until 12.30pm. So some days we would get up early and head out to explore the local towns and some of their markets. Other days we just went straight to work.

‘I used to log into work in the sunshine and stay there until my laptop died. It’s safe to say that everyone who was on Teams with me hated me last month when they saw me sitting in the blazing sun.”

In the evenings Josh enjoyed exploring the nearby town of Side, relaxing with a cocktail in the hotel bar and occasionally visiting the hotel nightclub.

His highlights included having access to “all the food he wanted” – especially Turkish mezze, bread and dips – and never having to tidy his room, thanks to the hotel’s daily maid service.

And he was pleasantly surprised by the amount of culture and history in the area, with ‘ancient ruins over 2,000 years old just a 10-minute walk away’.

The only downsides were paying for the hotel laundry service to wash his clothes and braving the cold water of the pool.

“Being winter, the outdoor pools were like an ice bath, so I had to channel my inner Wim Hof,” Josh said.

‘But even that wasn’t a problem because they had a heated indoor pool if I wanted to take a dip. Another small problem was that the juices were not freshly squeezed and were more like cordials – but like I said, very small.”

The advantage of visiting out of season was that the hotel was ‘not too busy’, but ‘well busy’.

Josh summed up the experience, saying it was “incredible” and he’s already planning his next month-long hotel stay in Vegas.

Moreover, he says, it is “reasonably accessible to anyone who can work anywhere.”

He added: ‘You could put your flat or house on a rental site and, given the prices that city center apartments charge in Britain, for a weekend stay, you could use this money to pay for your trip.

‘If you kept switching countries every month, that would be great. Country hopping and experiencing various five star hotels.

“Of course there are home comforts that you would miss, but you would make up for that with new cultures that you can dive right into.”

A HOME decor expert shared how she transformed her balcony into a gathering spot with affordable Walmart purchases.

Her home renovation even included a budget-friendly lemonade bar.

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Alexandra (@alexandrareynolds_) shared her interior design ideas in a TikTok video.

“Turned my boring apartment balcony into an outdoor oasis with affordable finds from Walmart,” she said.

She grabbed $30 steel trash cans, $15 bins, $12 plates and $20 pillows from the home section of Walmart to store her belongings.

For her balcony’s main focal point, she chose a $598 sectional rug and a matching rattan rug for rest and relaxation.

An $80 Better Homes & Gardens bar cart and a $23 drink dispenser were parts of her DIY lemonade bar.

Once home, she assembled the sectional and placed it in a corner, overlooking her balcony.

Next to her resting place she placed the cart, filled with containers for lemonade cups, ice, sparkling water and the drink dispenser filled with lemonade.

Others have also given their patios a complete makeover with affordable finds.

Kristya DIY expert, took on the project after growing tired of her opinions.

“This side of the patio needed a makeover and honestly, I was tired of staring at our air conditioning units,” she said.

In addition to a makeover, she explained that she desperately needed some privacy.

“I gave my porch a DIY patio makeover and added this privacy wall – provides so much shade and changed the whole patio design,” she said.

With a quick trip to Home Depot, she grabbed wooden slats to assemble her wall.

She sanded the wood and gave the slats a quick paint job.

Kristy couldn’t have been happier with the end result once the wall was up.

“This louvered wall provides so much shade on this side of the patio,” she said.

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A mother of three says she has been forced to sleep on the sofa with her toddler because the council won’t give her a bigger flat.

Elena Erimea, 36, moved into her one-bed basement home 12 years ago and says that while it was cramped, it was “manageable.”

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But now that she has three children, aged 14, seven and two, she says that even though the situation is ruining her life, the council won’t force her out.

Elena, from Angel, North London, said: “I can’t take it anymore.

‘I feel like we’re stuck and will never get out of here.

“I argue a lot with my 14-year-old daughter because she is frustrated about not having personal space.

“I also want my privacy and personal space, because I have to sleep in the living room.”

Elena shares a sofa bed with her youngest child, while her two other daughters sleep in bunk beds in the flat’s only bedroom.

The mother says the cramped flat has also affected her daughter’s ability to study for her final exams.

Elena cannot afford to buy or rent on the private market and told My London her only option is to beg Islington Council to move her to another council house.

She is willing to move to Luton, Beds, for a bigger home, but has faced an uphill battle given the huge waiting list for social housing across Britain.

Any move out of the borough would have to be organized by Elena herself, Islington Council said, highlighting the “extremely challenging” social housing situation in Britain.

Elena was almost freed from her nightmare a few months ago when a woman offered to trade her three-bedroom apartment for their current home.

But she backed out at the last minute because the bathroom was “full of mold.”

Elena explained, “No one wants to downsize and move to a bad property.”

But after the setback, she fears she will never be able to escape life in the one-bedroom flat.

A spokesperson for Islington Council said: “We understand Ms Erimea’s wish to move and have assessed her application in accordance with our allocation policy.

“Unfortunately, demand for social housing exceeds supply and the housing crisis means it is simply not possible to rehouse everyone who approaches us looking to move.”

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By Zak Wheeler for Daily Mail Australia

Published: 9:55 PM EST, March 1, 2024 | Updated: 10:37 PM EST, March 1, 2024

Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘House of Sin’ flat in Paris – where Prince Andrew lived – has sold for just over £8 million after the price had to be heavily reduced.

The disgraced financier and pedophile is said to have raped underage girls in the Parisienne apartment where he committed some of his worst sex crimes.

The luxury French flat, near the Arc de Triomphe, has sold to a Bulgarian investor for £8.2 million – £2 million less than the asking price.

The lair was once decorated with Epstein’s skull and eyeball artwork, but is now shuttered and empty. The sun reports. Sources claim that some of the proceeds from the sale could be given to Epstein’s victims in the future.

It comes as French police have been asked to reopen an investigation into the suicide of Epstein’s French ‘pimp’, Jean-Luc Brunel, who allegedly procured more than 1,000 women and girls for the financier to sleep with.

The fashion agent was in his mid-70s when he was found hanging in his cell at La Sante prison in Paris in February 2022 while serving time for supplying underage girls to the financier.

Virginia Roberts Guiffre, who accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault, also claimed to have been abused by Brunel.

The flat in Paris where both Andrew and Brunel met Epstein has been sold to Bulgarian plastic packaging businessman Georgi Tuchev, who brokered it through Sotheby’s for £360,000.

A source involved in the deal told The Sun: ‘It is claimed that some of the money from the proceeds will eventually be used to compensate the victims of Epstein’s sex ring.

‘It is clear that the history of the building did not assist the sales process and it sold for significantly less than the asking price.

“The dark past must have something to do with that, as well as the fact that the building was considered a crime scene for a long time.”

The Parisian source claimed that socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving 20 years behind bars for sex trafficking crimes, and Andrew were also guests.

Another investigative source said the apartment “remains interesting.”

Andrew was allegedly told by Epstein to treat the second-floor apartment “like his own” – and most of his travels came after the sex offender was convicted in 2008 of abusing young women.

A French investigation was launched in August 2019 after prosecutors learned that Brunel and Andrew both allegedly abused Guiffre.

Andrew claims he has no memory of meeting Guiffre, despite there being a photo of them together in Maxwell’s London townhouse.

Both Andrew and Brunel are said to have spent time in the Paris flat around the time of the alleged crimes, but there is no evidence to suggest the Duke was involved in any crimes there.

Police arrested Brunel in December 2020 as he tried to board a plane to Dakar, Senegal. He told investigators, “I’m going on vacation.”

Bruenl was charged by French police after being accused of supplying young girls to Epstein through his modeling agency connections.

One of the accusations was that he would fly three underage sisters from a residential area in Paris to America as a ‘birthday present’ for Epstein.

The sale of the flat comes after the Duke of York was dragged back into the spotlight last month after recently released court documents released in the US alleged Andrew had an orgy with underage girls and touched a woman’s breast while he posed with a doll of himself. .

Andrew has always denied all allegations.

Once you wrote to the scammers, they had your email address and used it. They sent you an email that looked like an official message from Booking.com and from a @confirmations-booking.com address, which may seem like a legitimate address. although the company says all its emails end in @booking.com.

Reading copies of the emails you forwarded to me, the imperfect English is also suspicious (“Your booking for a two-bedroom apartment with a view must be paid in full”), as are some account details with the Spanish bank BBVA. “Nyholm Peik,” has no online presence that I could find, and the address associated with the account is that of Vanity, a London 'gentleman's club' whose license was suspended in early 2023.

In our follow-up communication, Sylvia, you asked whether Booking.com had reported this apparent crime to the authorities or to the bank. I asked the company, which said it is the customer's responsibility to report fraud that occurs outside its platform, and BBVA, which declined to comment. Consumers should make such reports to the FBI Complaints center for internet crime and their own bank.

I was curious if Airbnb and Vrbo do anything different than Booking.com, so I reached out.

Edith Morris, a spokeswoman for Vrbo, said the company “deploys a variety of advanced risk strategies and tools to monitor suspicious behavior 24×7 and continually invest in our capabilities.” The company offers “payment protection against fraudulent listings,” although this doesn't necessarily apply to cases where a guest sends money outside of the Vrbo platform.

Airbnb has one new verification process for properties, instead of just hosts, is in the works and will use “a combination of advanced anti-fraud technology, AI and human review to verify authenticity,” a spokeswoman said. She added that the first “verified” icons will soon appear on some listings in the United States, Canada, Australia, England and France.

Star Indian opener Yashasvi Jaiswal has reportedly invested Rs 5 crores in a new apartment in Mumbai.

New Delhi: Star Indian opener Yashasvi Jaiswal has reportedly bought a new apartment in Mumbai worth INR 5 crores in the Ten BKC project in Bandra East. According to a report from Money Control, the deal for this 1,110-square-foot apartment in development closed on January 7, 2024.

India's young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal continues his rise in the Test rankings after scoring an unbeaten 214 in the third Test against England in Rajkot as he jumped 14 places to finish at 15th in the updated Test batsmen rankings, released by the International Cricket Council. ICC) on Wednesday.

The 22-year-old left-hander, who joined a select group of seven cricketers to score double centuries in two consecutive Tests, including two Indians – Vinod Kambli and Virat Kohli, also achieved a new career-high rating of 699.

Captain Rohit Sharma has moved up one place to 12th after also hitting a century in the first innings, while Shubman Gill has moved up three places to 35th after reaching almost a century in the second innings. Debutants Sarfaraz Khan and Dhruv Jurel have reached 75th and 100th position respectively in the rankings.

Player of the match in Rajkot Ravindra Jadeja's knock of 112 in the first innings has taken him from 41st to 34th position among batters. He has also consolidated his position at the top of the all-rounders rankings, from 416 to 469 rating points, the best of his career.

Jadeja scored a century and claimed seven wickets for the match in that emphatic Test win and moved to a new career-high rating while retaining his place as the No. 1 all-rounder in Test cricket.

Meanwhile, Kane Williamson has cemented his position at the top of the batting rankings after hitting a century against South Africa, his seventh in seven Tests.

Veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin moves closer to Indian teammate Jasprit Bumrah at the top of the Test bowling rankings thanks to a jump of one place to second after going past 500 Test wickets, while Jadeja jumped three places to sixth on the same list after his five-wicket reel in England's second innings at Rajkot.

By Kate Dennett for Daily Mail Australia

Published: 02:36 EST, February 13, 2024 | Updated: 03:10 EST, February 13, 2024