I signed up for an adventure and got a lot more than I bargained for. In a good way. It started with a basic task (put one foot in front of the other), and led me to a lasting experience I was hardly prepared for: ten days in a vacuum-like state, practically closed off from […]
The first stanza of Federico Garcia Lorca’s poem ‘Romance Sonámbulo‘ (‘Sleepwalking Romance’) translates: Green, how I want you green Green wind, green branches The boat out on the sea The horse on the mountain Written by the 20th century Spanish poet, the poem was arguably inspired by a European landscape and context, an azure Mediterranean sea and […]
Ibitipoca. Tough to pronounce; hard to get to; but well worth the effort. Here goes: Ibitipoca is pronounced “ee-bitch-ee-pokah” (sounds like a palavrão I know). But it actually comes from the indigenous Tupi-guarani language in which “ybytyra” = mountain, and “pok” = burst, a combination of words the natives used to describe the intense roaring […]
It’s a rather obvious point to make, but the last 2 years have been a bit shitty. As we sat hunkered down at home for months on end watching the news, it was as if the sense of physical and mental oppression caused by Covid was being exacerbated by the relentless fire-hose of human-caused catastrophe […]
As the world has been forced to slow down and the future still holds so much uncertainty, I find myself pouring over old photographs, dissecting memories of trips most dear to me, remembering places which I’m glad I’m took the time to visit. Prominent among them is Barichara in Colombia – a place I barely […]
I am not a person who wears a hat well. Top-hat or touk, I’ve never been able to quite pull it off. I envy those boys looking beatific in a beret, languidly posing in a Parisian cafe smoking Gauloises. I am not a milliner’s delight. When behatted, I tend to look a little like a […]
I love being out in the woods. Listening to the sounds of trees swaying in the breeze, sitting by a gurgling stream, observing the change of the colours. Forests and parks allow me to slow down and take in the small things. I find them soothing, nurturing, grounding. Everything feels connected. I thrive on a […]
July 21, 1969. My parents were traveling to Spain on their honeymoon, racing their tiny, overpacked Fiat 500 convertible beyond the laws of physics. They pulled over at a cafe in Tossa de Mar, a Medieval town in Catalonia, hastily parking the car on the sidewalk. It was very early in the morning (or very […]
After spending a good part of two decades hunting for small (and charming) hotels in Greece, it’s the question I get most often: “Which hotel is your favourite?” It’s not an easy one to answer. It so depends on the circumstances. What the mood is. Who is coming along. The season. The budget. Ask me […]
If ever there were a time to revel in plans of future road trips, the moment is now. To imagine remote exploration, untethered from the nucleus of a country, an impeccably well planned but impossible to script journey. Driving along the Carretera Austral or Chile’s ‘Southern Route’, has long been a soul dwelling desire of […]
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 […]
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 […]
Tyler gives us the low-down on the remote plains of Mongolia and the surprises therein…: The same year that “Ice Ice Baby,” “U Can’t Touch This,” and the eternal Jon Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory” were all released, that same chunk of time gave birth to the modern state of Mongolia – with ‘modern’ being the […]
If you’re going to build a hotel out of mud and straw, and place it on the far side of nowhere, then it had best be good. If you’re going to officially nickname it a ‘house of dreams’ and charge a thousand Euros a night, then it had best be phenomenal. Dar Ahlam, hidden in […]