Shitty Breaks

A Celebration of Unsung Cities

Ben Aitken

$44.99

Hardback

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QTY:

English

Icon Books
01 August 2025

Service industries; Travel & holiday guides

Adios Paris. Hello Wolverhampton.

Not everything that glitters is gold - which is why bestselling travel writer Ben Aitken went to Wolverhampton for the weekend.

Over the next year, the author of A Chip Shop in Poznan and The Gran Tour visited the least popular places in the UK and Ireland for a city break, as ranked by national tourism boards. The motivation wasn't to take the biscuit or to stick the boot in, but to seek out the good stuff, to uncover the gems, to have a good time. By doing so, he hoped to demonstrate that anywhere - like anyone - can be interesting and nourishing and enjoyable if approached in the right fashion (i.e. with your eyes closed).

Ben stayed in a treehouse in Newry, went skydiving in Milton Keynes and suffered jellied eels in Chelmsford. He went curling in Preston, to the football in Wrexham and had far too much craic in Limerick. The result is a celebration of the underdog; a hymn to the wrong direction; and evidence that there's no such thing as a shitty break. What's more, by spreading its attention and affection beyond the usual suspects (which are often overdone and overpriced), Shitty Breaks promotes a less expensive and more sustainable brand of travel and tourism.

AUTHOR: Ben Aitken was born under Thatcher, grew to 6ft then stopped, and is an Aquarius. He is the author of four books: Dear Bill Bryson, A Chip Shop in Poznan (a Times bestseller), The Gran Tour ('Both moving and hilarious', Spectator) and The Marmalade Diaries.

By: Ben Aitken
Imprint: Icon Books
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 135mm,
ISBN: 9781837730469
ISBN 10: 1837730466
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 01 August 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Unspecified

Ben Aitken was born under Thatcher, grew to 6ft then stopped, and is an Aquarius. He was conceived by a nurse and a shipwright, grew up in Portsmouth and was in a boyband for a spell in the noughties, then worked as a carer throughout his twenties. He is the author of six books: Dear Bill Bryson, A Chip Shop in Poznan (a Times bestseller), The Gran Tour ('Both moving and hilarious', Spectator), The Marmalade Diaries, Here Comes the Fun and Shitty Breaks. He writes for The Guardian and The Times, was the TCG Travel Journalist of the Year in 2024, and is an occasional lecturer at the University of Portsmouth.

Reviews for Shitty Breaks: A Celebration of Unsung Cities

Sh*tty Breaks is a powerful and delightful antidote to smug travelogues of popular places. Driven both by a real love for people and an abiding sense of the ridiculous, Ben Aitken walks and talks his charming way around the unsung cities of the British Isles. For all that it is funny, and it really is, it is also an important love letter to ordinariness in all its forms which, in these needy times, is a precious thing. Funny and immensely thought provoking. * Roger Morgan-Grenville, author of The Restless Coast * A jaunty journey of quick wit that takes you to parts of the UK that don't often feature in tourist board campaigns. * Tom Chesshyre, author of Slow Trains Around Britain * An excellent read, nice and wry. * Christopher Somerville, author of Walking the Bones of Britain * Aitken's writing is always a delight. * Madeleine Bunting, author of The Seaside *