[This article was originally published 27 November 2019] As I sit here writing this, winter has just begun to take hold in Southern Ontario. Meanwhile, on Somerset Island, 3400 kilometres as the crow flies from where I sit, the tundra and the northwest passage have been in winter’s grip for months. Way up in Northern Nunavut, perched […]
Remember dinner parties? The ever-gracious host. The ebullient storyteller who commandeers the conversation. The witty chap in a blazer – a date on his arm and a quip on his lips. The elegant lady in a well-tailored dress which flatters but doesn’t reveal. Her kid sister with a contagious laugh and plummeting neckline. Sigh. It’s […]
Twenty something, rebellious, and by all accounts, “randy”. A young English poet named George Gordon Byron (“Lord” to all but those who knew him well) swept through the small enclave of Sintra in 1809, penned a few lines of what would become Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, and sent letters home to friends declaring Sintra the most […]
You may know Chefchaouen already, but under a different name: Xauen or Chaouen among others. Or perhaps you’ve seen any one of the millions of photos of it on Instagram, “The Blue City” or “The Blue Pearl” being some of the confoundingly inaccurate nicknames for Chefchaouen that I suppose sounded good to some PR folks […]
I’ve found that the old dictum “hindsight is 20/20” has taken on new meaning this year. My realization has been that for much of my adult life, travel has defined my most significant moments. I don’t want to come off sounding like some Instagram travel influencer racing around the globe to collect passport stamps for the […]
Next week I embark on my annual canoe trip with a group of close friends. We typically stick close to Algonquin Park, as our cottage is located there, making it an easy jumping-off point. Plus the joy of a post-trip ice cold beer in the sun on the dock is hard to pass up. Ontario has […]
There is much discussion in the shell-shocked world of the travel ‘industry’. What’s lost, what’s coming back, what’s never to return. Goodbye to the city break? Good riddance mass tourism! Farewell fly-and-flop. Well, I don’t know the answer to all that, but I do know that there is one journey I currently cannot get out […]
Let this be an ode to the non-tactile senses. To the joy of looking and seeing, the richness of listening and hearing. To being still long enough and staying put long enough to enjoy some of the world’s subtleties. About 15 years ago, I had burrowed my way into the professional world of travel. In […]
After a 7 hour train journey from my home in Provence to Evian-les-Bains on the shore of Lake Geneva, I find myself standing on the side of a road, surrounded by beautiful alpine scenery on one side and the clear waters of the lake on the other. I am holding a piece of cardboard salvaged […]
March 17, 2020. France has just entered into confinement with strict rules: we are locked down for the foreseeable future and limited to 1 hour a day outside our homes and within a 1km radius. Difficult times ahead for keen travelers and nature lovers like me. … May 11. The French government has eased the […]
Times have changed, but then again in some places they haven’t. As social distancing and seeing people in masks becomes the new normal, I’m reminded of a place where this has always been the status quo – visiting the chimps of Mahale. Such precautions have been in place ever since Nomad Tanzania opened Greystoke Mahale, […]
When I was younger I used to love lying on the beach. I could do it for hours, day after day. I had no care for SPF, much less so for changes in elevation. The sun, my towel, and a flat bit of sand by any body of water was all I needed. And then, in […]
Turkey spans continents, it defies expectations (mostly by surpassing them), its cuisine is constantly impressive, and then the separate regions within this vast varied country are themselves myriad, from the thriving cultural hub of Istanbul to the Azure Coast, from the interior splendours of cave-like Cappadocia to the historical highlights of Ephesus. You can now add another to […]
I’m not alone in finding that the Zambezi Valley always has a special draw – flying in invariably gives me a frisson of excitement. Once you climb over the hills east of Lake Kariba, you begin to descend as you cross into Mana Pools. As you get low enough, you’ll see an elephant or two, moving through the […]
A dreamer for surf, I always imagined my life would follow the tides and know the nooks and crannies of some little seen coastline like the back of my hand, but I never lived on the salt water, at least not for long enough to get used to the patterns of the sea. All the pot-smoking […]
The name Congo tends to conjure up images of war, exotic diseases and sweaty impenetrable jungles. Like most things though, the reality is often less frightening that the reputation, and this is particularly true when talking about the Republic of Congo, the smaller safer neighbour of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Congo, a conservation […]